INTEL, the maker of microchips, has abandoned the charitable joint venture that aimed to sell cheap laptop computers to the world's poorest children.

The company, which has a major operation in Swindon employing 850 people, withdrew from the scheme after a public row with its founder.

Intel joined the project last summer and has been at loggerheads with the organisation, called One Laptop Per Child, ever since.

The row had been with founder Nicholas Negroponte, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who wanted to supply cheap laptops.

He proposed to manufacture laptops for £50 each to help narrow the technology divide between the rich and developing nations, and wanted to see 150 million schoolchildren receive laptops by the end of this year.

The laptop project has hit cost problems, with OLPC computers selling for about £188 each.

Intel said that it had withdrawn from the project after Mr Negroponte told the company that it must stop trying to compete by selling its own cheap laptop, the Classmate, to the same countries.

Chris Hogg, head of marketing with Intel (UK), said it was part of the company's ethos to help and educate young people around the world with new technology, and it would continue with its own programme.

5:01pm Tuesday 5th February 2008

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