Continued:

Thus we come to one the most interesting stakeholders (?) in this project. Apple products are traditionally considered chic, urbane and expensive. That has been Apple’s market and philosophy. Why then would Apple associate itself with a cheap $100 notebook? Could it be that Apple is getting philanthropic with all the money it is making by selling iPods? It might be possible.

Think about this: what is the number one reason for people to continue to use with Windows? Learning curve, of course (remember that people who are willing to learn a new platform just so they can get away from Windows is few and far between). Sure, a million people might’ve moved from Windows to Apple (or so a report I read recently claimed), but that is clearly not enough, and if Apple can attract a younger user base at school level and get them used to Mac OS X, they would be more inclined to opt for a Macintosh rather than a Windows platform, thereby giving more business to Apple. So, as far as I can tell, Apple may be in it to secure its future rather than seeing an immediate benefit from it.

Brightstar, a wireless solutions provider, is in the deal for obvious reasons – packaging wireless connectivity with the notebook. Since both hardware and software vendors are contributing, why not partner with them and provide a complete package. Brightstar could give such buyers instant access to the virtual world (perhaps Google?), and reap in the benefits. This market is untapped by other operators and with a head start against its competitors, this could turn out to be a fruitful opportunity for the wireless solutions provider.

Red Hat obviously wants in on it because early Linux adoption could be a big boost to its plans for thwarting Windows, so it is there for more or less the same reason as Apple. Unfortunately, Apple’s Mac OS X has been turned down, at least for now, and the first notebooks will indeed be powered by Red Hat and an AMD processor. We expect Red Hat to offer a limited version of their OS, but we’ll just have to wait and find out on that one.

The point of this analysis is that there are a lot of vested interests in this project, and Mr. Negroponte should make sure that no conflict of interest kills this otherwise noble project.