The rise of the low-cost laptop

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: free and can be freely modified by users—something the XO’s backers were keen to encourage. But government and education officials would prefer to stick with the software that has, for better or worse, become the worldwide computing standard. In May Negroponte conceded that the lack of Windows support had hindered the XO’s adoption, and announced plans to produce a new, Windows-based model.

Although the Classmate may have stolen some of the XO’s thunder in the developing world, another low-cost laptop has been a runaway success in the developed world. The tiny Asus Eee PC, little bigger than a paperback book and weighing less than a kilogram, sold more than 3,00,000 units in 2007 alone. It is now available in several versions: the most basic model, with a seven-inch screen, costs $299, and a new high-end model with a nine-inch screen costs $549. HP, the world’s biggest PC-maker, entered this new market in April with the ‘Mini-Note’, a small laptop weighing just over a kilogram. It too will cost under $500.

All of these new machines are being aimed at consumers in the rich world, who like the idea of a computer that can be taken anywhere, as well as being sold for educational use in poor countries. The $100 laptop has been a success-just not, so far, in the way its makers intended.