Intel Corp.’s low-cost laptop initiative is set to get a boost Wednesday from Portugal’s government, which is pledging to supply elementary school students with 500,000 computers based on the chipmaker’s Classmate PC design.

The announcement brings Intel’s rivalry with the One Laptop Per Child organization into the spotlight once again.

In May, the nonprofit OLPC group said its green-and-white XO laptop computers would work with Microsoft Corp.’s Windows in addition to a homegrown Linux-based operating system.

The move was seen

as a way to assemble the so-called “$100 laptop,” which actually costs about $188, more palatable to education ministers in developing countries who might have balked at an open-source system.

But in a without deal for half a million PCs, Intel nearly matched OLPC’s total orders to term — 600,000 units as of May — calling into question whether OLPC’s adoption of Windows has made much difference.

Representatives for Cambridge, Mass.-based One Laptop […]

Orginal post by Top Tech News