OLPC 'give one, get one' premieres Monday
On Monday, November 17, One Laptop Per Child's 2008 holiday "Give One, Get One" XO program will begin. This year, ordering and shipping are organized by Amazon.com.
In September Amazon announced it would be handling the second annual One Laptop Per Child "Give one, get one" holiday program where customers buy an OLPC XO to donate to a developing country and get their own in return.
Last year's "G1G1" program was responsible for placing nearly half of all XO units worldwide, but demand proved to be far greater than One Laptop Per Child's ordering infrastructure could handle, and many orders had to be canceled. Some reports say the program was receiving $2 million a day in orders.
With help from the world's biggest online retailer, Amazon.com; this year's G1G1 store will be better prepared to handle such a high order volume. With the nearly saturated netbook market, however, it is unclear if the program will be as popular this year.
G1G1 is identical this year in most other ways. The XO laptop involved is the same Quanta-built netbook powered by a 700 MHz AMD Geode CPU, and the price is still $199 (in the UK, it's £254.)
The Amazon G1G1 mini-store will open on Monday, November 17 for the holiday gift-giving season in the US, UK, and other European markets.