The web has been a buzz with the sudden change of hearts at Intel as the world’s top chip maker has joined the One Laptop per Child Foundation, the organization that makes the now infamous $100 laptops intended to help children worldwide, particularly those in the poor countries, receive education and a better chance to improve their lives.

In May this year, Nicholas Negroponte, the founder of OLPC, said the silicon giant “should be ashamed of itself” for efforts to undermine his initiative.

He accused Intel of selling its own cut-price laptop – the Classmate PC – below cost to drive him out of markets in the developing world.

“What happened in the past has happened,” Will Swope of Intel told the BBC News website. “But going forward, this allows the two organisations to go do a better job and have a better impact for what we are both very eager to do, which is help kids around the world.”

Nicholas Negroponte, founder of One Laptop per Child, said: “Intel joins the OLPC board as a world leader in technology, helping reach the world’s children. Collaboration with Intel means that the maximum number of laptops will reach children.”

This however does not mean that the $100 laptops would now be running Intel chips, rival chipmaker AMD has already landed that spot. Instead, the servers that will support these laptops would be graced by Intel technologies at their cores.

With Intel aboard, more technologies and more funding would get the project going even more. Not unless of course, criticisms about the project picks up wind and starts to convert observers to its side of the fence.

Such critic is Michael Dell who once said;

those so-called $100 laptops won’t be powerful enough to make much of a difference in their lives.

“The issue is not so much what does it cost, but what does it do,” he said during a question and answer session with customers and finalists of the Dell/National Federation of Independent Business Small-Business Excellence Award.

Things are certainly picking up for the OLPC project, now that Intel has jumped fences things will be more interesting from here on.

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