Get ready for the $40 school computer.

This post comes from eSchoolNews. One way or another, the idea of ubiquitous, low-cost computer access for schoolchildren, both in the United States and abroad, is fast approaching the point where goals turn into realities. Major technology players, including several large companies and a nonprofit group that is focusing on developing countries, have been working in different ways to advance the cause.

Things are moving along so quickly, in fact, that Stephen Dukker, chairman and CEO of the small, California-based company NComputing, predicts that by 2009 many schools will be able to provide their students with portable, online capabilities for as little as $100 each--and perhaps as little as $30 or $40 per user for non-mobile devices. Wireless capacity, says Dukker, should be a relatively inexpensive bonus by then.

NComputing has just broken new ground with an announcement that the Republic of Macedonia will become the first nation in the world to provide computer workstations for every elementary and secondary school student. Macedonia's Ministry of Education and Science selected NComputing over four other bidders and will use the company's "multi-user virtual desktop software," along with inexpensive terminals, to provide computing for some 400,000 students, most of whom attend school in half-day sessions.

The first 770 student "seats" were installed in three of Macadonia's high schools in August, with about 100,000 more scheduled to be deployed by the end of this year and another 80,000 expected to be ready by the end of 2008. Click here to read the rest of this article.