We did not rush to posting this as there’s tight lobby promoting the OLPC so this story is far from over. As a mater of fact Romanian PM Calin Popescu Tariceanu brags about having brought the initiative to the Parliament.
What is peculiar is that the media picked up the news poorly, quoting a total price tag of 700 million Euros. OLPCnews.com rushed to accusing the Romanian politics for killing the deal and raised a question about the legit behind the 700 mil figgure.
The answer is rather simple though. Any country that wants to purchase the OLPC has to order a minimum of one million units. Since Romania is a EU member it deals in Euros, therefore one hundred million US dollars goes translated in roughly 70 million EU currency units (Euros).
The darn playful extra zero made it all look like a political trick. Whereas it only comes down to the basics of being an EU member, and the OLPC is not on that priority list for Romania.

Too bad, we say, because we would have liked to see the funny green wireless lappies around. But the reality is that Romania has plenty of computers in schools. Africa or Asia need those computers more than children in Romania do.

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