Intel Sets Out to Discover New Worlds for the PC

Intel says it wants to put PCs into the hands of more people around the world.

The chip maker on March 31 unveiled an initiative it says it is undertaking to help deliver PCs to people in developing nations, who might not be able to afford the types of desktops and notebooks that are popular today in markets such as the United States.

The initiative, dubbed Discover the PC, will emphasizes things like cost, size and power efficiency, yet still deliver PCs capable of running familiar applications and accessing the Internet, Intel said in a statement.

Thus, the company says it is working with local governments and telecommunications companies to help distribute the machines, each of which is likely to vary in price as well as how it is used, country-to-country.

One such machine, dubbed a Community PC, is designed to be centrally located and thus used by numerous people in rural India. Another created for countries such as Mexico will be more of a stand-alone machine, Intel indicated.

Word of the Intel initiative comes a few days before Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory's Chairman Emeritus Nicholas Negroponte, leader of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative—often referred to as the $100 laptop project—is expected to give an update on the project during a keynote at LinuxWorld.

To read more about Negroponte's vision for OLPC, click here.

The first machines created by OLPC—which itself has been backed by several major technology companies including Advanced Micro Devices, Red Hat Software and PC manufacturer Quanta Computer—are expected to arrive later this year.

Intel gave few details, such as the exact type of hardware and operating systems its Discover the PC initiative would tap or which manufacturers will build the machines.

But it said the platforms will be fully featured with an emphasis on ease of use, in addition to low price, meaning they may well compete with OLPC's efforts.

Intel and others are interested in creating PCs for emerging markets that are expected to help drive much of the future growth of PC shipments, said Roger Kay, president of Endpoint Technologies Associates. in Wayland, Mass.

"A lot of companies have looked at this problem ... and tried to figure out the right way to go into a local village," he said.

"It's not an easy problem to solve," Kay said. "But these are very big markets." Successful project could "give Intel a footprint in the developing world, where all the future growth is supposed to come from."

Initially, Intel plans to help make low-cost desktop PCs available through government agencies and telecommunications companies in Mexico, Brazil, Egypt, Ghana and Nigeria. It will expand the program to other countries later this year, the company said in a statement.

Intel is also developing a prototype small-form-factor laptop PC that will offer software and hardware features for the education market, the company said.

Why I Stopped Promoting Linux in Government

For a couple of years, I wrote exclusively for Linux Journal on Linux in Government. I found many government units deploying Linux and other GNU software in critical infrastructure around the world. Spurred by community members I specialized in the government arena.

I had no idea of the depth and breathe of Microsoft's operations in Government. As some might characterize their operations, they hide under the cover of darkness. They operate where no one can see them. Don't buck them, they employ people who can take your life.

My first glimpse of the dangers inherent in tackling government adoption occurred when a state senator asked me as a specialist to look at ways to cut budget dollars in a deep hole called the Department of Information Services.

That senator filed a bill that specified the state consider the total cost of ownership including life-cycle maintenance costs, the costs associated with risk issues, including security and privacy of data, and the costs of ensuring security of the IT system itself.

Essentially, we wanted to stop budget cuts in social services and shift the revenues from dead IT projects currently drawing budget money to the general fund.

In my opinion, all hell broke loose. I have never seen so many alter-egos, shills and groups invented by Microsoft to stop free software adoption in government. I have also never seen as many dumb and dumber people occupying important positions in government.

I started three open source efforts. They included governmentforge.org, the Open Government Interoperability Project and a LAMP project called Leopard. The players in the government arena essentially took those ideas and put them in their own projects one of which is Core.gov and the other called Government Open Code Collaborative.

I would characterize the people involved in these type of organizations as nasty bureaucrats. I have never met one of them who cared about the people they serve. The ones I have met only care about their careers. They would cut the heart out of the person in the next office in a minute. I saw this as an intern at the Library of Congress, as an auditor in a DoD Management and Operations contractor, as a Oracle Financials documentation specialist at a DoE facility where I found misappropriations that ran about 50% and how they kept them off the books.

Here's how they did it. The DOE used something called a WBS or work breakdown structure. When a cost accounting manager of a segment in the current year went over budget, he would find another cost accounting manager to transfer his overages into a future year. When they reached that future year, they would be out of money and would then make a request for additional funds. That's how projects have cost overruns and end up costing multiples of the original appropriation. It gets worse though. These crooks do it off the books and outside the computerized system. They have a person they trust keep manual records of these cost accounting transactions and they often pay that person.

Did I give up. You bet I did. One of the champions of Linux and free software in a major state agency chose to purchase Windows XP desktops for everyone in the agency. I've heard that man speaking at National Conventions for Government CIOs exalting the benefits of free software.

I have read the serenity prayer several times in my life. It goes like this:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

I decided to use the wisdom I gained in a lifetime of experience to accept the things I can't change. I also think that anyone in America who believes our government cares about us lives in a dream world. I don't care if you're a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or whatever. The people running for office are politicians. They don't listen and they don't care.

Does that mean I won't muckrake, write and investigate? No, it doesn't mean that. I just won't work with politicians who claim they want to save our citizens money, keep jobs in the US and help all people in the US survive above the poverty level.

Cingular's Two Parents Become One

PHILADELPHIA/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - AT&T Inc. (T.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Sunday it would buy BellSouth Corp. (BLS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) for $67 billion to expand its reach into the southeastern United States and acquire the rest of Cingular Wireless it does not already own.

BellSouth shareholders will receive 1.325 shares of AT&T common stock for each common share of BellSouth. Based on AT&T's closing stock price on March 3, that equals $37.09 per BellSouth common share, a 17.9-percent premium.

The new AT&T, which was formed in November when SBC Communications Inc. completed its acquisition of AT&T Corp., also said it would repurchase at least $10 billion of its common shares over the next 22 months.

Together, AT&T and BellSouth would have a national long-distance telephone and data network, residential customers stretching from Florida to California and business customers comprising more than half of the Fortune 1000, analysts have said. The next largest telephone company, Verizon Communications, has a market capitalization of $99.2 billion.

The deal would bring ownership of Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. wireless telephone company, under one roof, which Wall Street analysts have said would streamline management and allow one parent company to enjoy all of the financial benefits.

AT&T currently owns 60 percent of Cingular, while BellSouth owns the remaining 40 percent. Despite its heft, Cingular has been losing marketshare of the most lucrative, post-paid customers to its main rival, Verizon Wireless.

At the completion of the deal, which is expected to close within a year, all the landline and wireless businesses will exist under the sole brand name of AT&T, the companies said.

A purchase of BellSouth would recombine the former "Ma Bell" with four of the seven original Baby Bells regional telephone companies. AT&T was broken up in 1984, with the parent controlling the long-distance assets and its seven offspring controlling regional local telephone services.

As traditional landline phone businesses have been hurt by a shift to e-mail and wireless phones, telephone carriers have shifted their focus to faster growing businesses such as wireless and data services.

AT&T and other major telephone companies also have been upgrading their networks to offer subscription-television services to thwart competition from cable TV operators, which are offering phone services. AT&T in January began offering video in Texas and plans to expand service to 21 cities in its home territory this year.

DEAL TO FACE REGULATORY SCRUTINY

A merged AT&T-BellSouth would be trailed by Verizon Communications (VZ.N: Quote, Profile, Research), which last year bought MCI Inc. Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q.N: Quote, Profile, Research), the final remaining Baby Bell, covers Minnesota to Washington state.

Any deal would require approval from antitrust authorities as well as the Federal Communications Commission, but analysts said they doubted there would be significant opposition.

"The deal is likely to be approved," said Blair Levin, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus and a former Federal Communications Commission chief of staff. "The government has already given us a road map and it had very few speedbumps and much less brick walls for this kind of transaction."

He said the government would likely seek similar conditions on this transaction that were placed on the AT&T-SBC deal, which included some price controls, as well as providing competitors access to some buildings and ensuring customers have unfettered access to the Internet.

The deal's price tag will likely weigh on AT&T's stock price, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Chris King said. Still, he doubts that any AT&T shareholder would be big enough on its own to stop the deal.

For Edward Whitacre, chairman and chief executive of the new AT&T, a deal would be the latest of a long line of bold acquisitions.

At SBC, Whitacre had acquired regional Baby Bell companies Pacific Telesis and Ameritech Corp. He also helped orchestrate the $41 billion purchase of AT&T Wireless by Cingular Wireless, the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier.

While at SBC, Whitacre previously had weighed buying BellSouth, but shifted to the purchase of AT&T, sources familiar with the situation had said.

Whitacre will be chairman of the combined companies, while BellSouth Chairman Duane Ackerman will head BellSouth operations for a transition period following the merger, the companies said.