Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

300 seconds and counting...

• Darren Waters
• 8 Jan 08, 22:56 GMT

What do you do when you only have 300 seconds in which to interview someone?

That was my dilemma when I was offered an interview with Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel, the world's most powerful chip company.

What do I ask? Where do I start? How many questions can we fit it?

The interview followed immediately after his keynote speech at CES, in which he laid out his vision for a more personal internet. You can read my report of his speech .

So a question about his speech was a given. In the week before the interview I considered many different questions but in the end my other questions were decided for me.

At the end of last week they were quitting the One Laptop Per Child scheme.

This was followed by a strongly-worded statement from OLPC, accusing Intel of failing to deliver on promises.

Needless to say, it was obvious I would have to ask Otellini about this.

But where to place the question; that was my dilemma. If I opened the interview with a question about OLPC and the row, and the question irritated Otellini, the interview could be over in much less than 300 seconds.

So in the end I decided to ask about OLPC second. Otellini politely answered, saying the row had not overshadowed his keynote.

But when I asked him if OLPC's assertion that Intel had failed to deliver on promises his answer was brief - in the extreme.

"Hogwash."

The interview never recovered from that point, although Otellini answered all my remaining questions politely.

Rory Cellan-Jones has today interviewed Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the OLPC scheme, to get his side of the story.

We'll be writing up Negroponte's answers, together with Otellini's comments, very soon.