Despite slower-than-expected sales and tough competition from commercial rivals, the One Laptop Per Child Foundation of Cambridge is enjoying a surge of new orders.
Nicholas Negroponte, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who set up the foundation to provide low-cost laptops to poor schoolchildren around the globe, said in an interview yesterday that the government of Peru has signed a contract to purchase 260,000 of the $188 machines. "It was notarized five minutes ago," he said, adding that the Peruvian order will make it easier for the foundation to sign up more countries to the program. "It's momentum."
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2007/12/01/one_laptop_per_child_orders_surge/