$100 Laptop Now $188

Just cuz they’re from MIT doesn’t mean they can do the math evidently. The vaunted $ 100 laptop is now estimated to cost $188 when it hits production.

While less than $200 for an innovative, wireless-enabled, hand-powered laptop is a relative bargain, a price nearly twice what the project’s memorable nickname promised could make it harder for One Laptop Per Child to sign up international governments as customers. Those governments are expected to give the computers to children for them to keep and tinker with, which the project’s founders believe will cause critical thinking and creativity to blossom.

“Where does it end? It started out at $130, then it was $148, then it was $176, now it’s $188 _ what’s next? $200?” said Wayan Vota, the former director of the Geekcorps international tech-development organization and current editor of the OLPCNews blog. “You have these governments who were looking at this original, fanciful $100-per-child figure, now we’re going up towards or maybe past $200.”

Here’s what will work: If you just give the project to a Wal Mart buyer and offer to let the retailing giant sell it profitably at $100, you WILL get the price down.  They know how to squeeze the fat out of the supply chain.

Does anyone know why we let university trained economists have a say so about our economy and money supply when they can’t even price a lap top computer?