The company is taking aim at the perch Apple has established for itself as a key online distributor of newspapers and newspapers via its iPad.

FORBES: Consumers Always Seem to Lose in the Apple, Amazon, Google Wars

On the pro side, OLPC has big-ticket partners, including Google, key Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices, Linux distributor Red Hat, and RupertMurdochRupert Murdoch's News Corp.

FORBES

Of course, sommeliers are invited to play golf as well some I know have even been taken on private planes to Burgundy by their best customers. (No, I won't be naming names.) And both retailers and sommeliers have been known to accept importer- or distributor-sponsored trips to visit key producers, whose wines will presumably end up on wine lists and store shelves.

WSJ: The Everyday Sommelier on the Corner | On Wine by Lettie Teague

Sensing that his wines would suffer in the key California market (a quarter of sales) at the hands of an outside distributor, Jackson started his own there and may do the same in other states.

FORBES: Harvest Time