Acer chairman says OLPC is a good cause for charity, but it's no way for a business to work Acer, the world’s third largest PC vendor, does not plan to launch an ultra-low cost PC nor offer versions of the ClassMate PC being promoted for developing countries.“We’re more focused on building a stronger brand image,” said J.T. Wang, chairman of Acer, in an interview. He said the company’s desktops will hit the price points required by developing markets without any special effort to drive down costs or develop a specific product for the market.He also said efforts such as the XO laptop of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project are difficult because they depend on government policy and non-government organizations, which are unreliable. OLPC is a good cause for a charity, he said, but it’s not a way for a business to work. OLPC is a non-profit group led by Nicholas Negroponte, a co-founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Media Laboratory. It’s aim is to build a $100 laptop for kids in poor countries.Some PC makers have announced plans to make ultra-low cost PCs targeted at developing nations, including machines designed around Intel’s ClassMate PC initiative.The world’s largest chip maker developed the ClassMate PC concept, also designed for kids in developing countries. It’s a rugged laptop PC built around an Intel microprocessor. Taiwan’s Asustek Computer has said it will launch a series of low-cost PCs later this year, but the company hasn’t confirmed reports that the devices will be built around the ClassMate PC design.The OLPC and ClassMate projects are aimed at ensuring children around the world don’t miss out on learning how to use computers. The fear is that the high cost of computers is keeping too many people in developing countries from learning how the software, Internet and communications benefits of computing can improve their economies, job prospects and lives, a conundrum commonly referred to as the digital divide. Technology Industry