Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of the One Laptop Per Child non-profit group, revealed big news about his laptop for the poor children of the world. His biggest revelations: The laptop will run Windows, and the group is seriously considering selling it in the United States.

The machine, which OLPC aims ultimately to price at $100, is called the XO.

But now Intel’s longtime animosity to the project has taken on new intensity, and that has consequences. Negroponte asserts that in the last couple of weeks, as the final deadline of May 30 approaches for countries to make firm commitments for XOs, Intel has been methodically going to the expected launch countries and offering unusually attractive terms for its own much-less-sexy Classmate PC.

The Classmate is essentially a standard but simplified desktop that like the XO is decorated in green plastic, but less fetchingly. Negroponte claims Intel is pricing it at $180, significantly below its cost of production, and for lots of only 10,000. In an email, Intel spokesman Bill Calder responds that the Classmate’s price is generally higher and he’s not sure what Negroponte is referring to.

When most people think of big high-tech hubs, what comes to mind is Silicon Valley. In-the-know IT workers might also add Northern Virginia, Denver or Austin to that list. But rarely is much said about Florida, which, according to the AEA’s "Cyberstates 2007" report, is the fourth-largest and second-fastest-growing technology hub.

Florida’s high-tech industry added a net 10,900 jobs between 2004 and 2005, a growth in technology-related employment surpassed only by California, which added 14,400 high-tech jobs in the same period.

IBM announced that more than 3,600 partners have joined IBM’s SOA Partner Program, which is more than triple the amount of partners enrolled at this time last year.

Depending on their level in the program, Business Partners have access to a range of software, services, tools, education marketing and sales benefits. In addition, they can benefit from Web-based sales support delivered through the PartnerWorld Industry Networks and its Virtual Innovation to help their customers with mission critical SOA projects.

At its PartnerWorld 2007 Conference, IBM announced initiatives to help its Business Partners engage in deeper collaboration and broader ecosystem teaming through the formation of value nets that lead to increased business opportunities across the world. Using the new IBM PartnerWorld Value Net Connections program, IBM Business Partners now have quick access to a framework of tools and resources designed to allow them to identify complementary partners and go to market with industry-tailored solutions, particularly for the mid-market. IBM is also announcing two cutting-edge initiatives to help organizations and IT professionals participate, communicate and connect through online collaborative networks: IBM Lotus Connections for Partners and IBM developerWorks community spaces.

At its PartnerWorld 2007 Conference, IBM is announcing the significant global expansion of its Express Advantage program for mid-sized businesses. IBM Express Advantage combines a comprehensive set of mid-market offerings, IBM Business Partner resources and customer experience capabilities to create a unified, end-to-end approach to helping mid-market companies innovate and grow.

Launched last year in North America, IBM is introducing Express Advantage in 23 additional countries providing a platform for continued growth in the mid-market. IBM also announced a range of new and enhanced Express Advantage systems, software, and services offerings to complement its industry-leading mid-market portfolio, new end-to-end IBM Business Partner resources to fuel growth in the mid-market, as well as simplified access to IBM and IBM’s Business Partners to make innovation easy for customers.

We continue our technical analysis of the White House missing email controversy. Last week, we learned that the President’s staff uses at least two domains for email: EOP.GOV for official business and GWB43.COM for political business. This week, we explore GWB43.COM for clues into the White House email infrastructure. We’ve come up with some disturbing new questions.

Read this DominoPower article.

Eclipse Rich Client Platform and IBM Lotus Expeditor V6.1 are platforms for building client-side applications. This article examines Eclipse RCP and Lotus Expeditor, considers why and when to develop applications for Lotus Expeditor with RCP, and shows how to migrate existing RCP applications to Lotus Expeditor.

The new architecture of IBM Lotus Notes V8 enables a wide range of new ways to extend and customize the user experience using Eclipse plug-ins. This article describes how to access and how to create Lotus Notes content from within this new model.

Database rivals MySQL and IBM announced plans to bring support for the MySQL open-source database to the IBM System i business computing platform.

The two companies will work together to offer MySQL Server for i5/OS–the operating system for System i–and expect to deliver DB2 for i5/OS as a certified MySQL storage engine on the System i platform. The move means System i customers can run online and transactional MySQL applications while storing all data in a single DB2 database.

Text CodeGear, the development tools arm of Borland, announced a partnership with MySQL AB to deliver software solutions to enable developers to experience more flexibility and quickly develop database-driven Web applications.

Officials at CodeGear and MySQL said the companies have collaborated on integrating the MySQL open-source database with CodeGear’s Delphi IDE (integrated development environment) product line, including the new Delphi for PHP and Delphi 2007 for Win32 products, as well as Delphi for .Net.