Low-cost laptops to expand to U.S., Europe

Intel Corp., the world's largest computer chip maker, said on Wednesday that distribution of low-cost educational laptops it designed for developing markets will soon expand to the United States and Europe.

Computer makers will start selling Intel-designed Classmate PCs in those markets for about $250 to $350, making them the latest super low-cost laptops to go on sale in the developed world, said Lila Abraham, general manager of Intel's emerging market platform's group.

She declined to identify the PC makers, saying those companies had asked Intel to keep their names quiet until they ready to unveil the models.

The chipmaker has conducted pilot tests of the devices in the United States and Australia, she said, but declined to name the schools where they are being tested.

She said that manufacturers in India, Mexico and Indonesia already have begun selling Classmate PC laptops on the retail market.

To date Intel has sold fewer than 100,000 of the Classmate PCs, but plans to ramp up production in 2008.

It has developed a second model, the Classmate 2, and has already begun work on a third, the Classmate 3, Abraham said in a telephone conference call with Reuters reporters.

"With the second generation there will be more choices for manufacturers going into retail," she said.

That will give them flexibility to build a range of laptops with different memory configurations, screen sizes and various peripheral devices including cameras, she said.

The Classmate's key rivals in the super low-cost laptop market are the $399 Eee PC from Taiwan's Asustek Computer and the XO Laptop, which costs $188 to manufacture and is sold by the nonprofit One Laptop Per Child Foundation.

Asustek is the world's largest maker of computer motherboards.

Inventor Mary Lou Jepsen, a scientist who developed the XO Laptop, resigned from the foundation at the end of last year and started her own company, Pixel Qi, with the goal of building a $75 laptop by 2010.