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OLPC Cost Rises To $188 Per Laptop
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Sep 15, 2007 12:11 AM
from the still-not-a-ton-of-money dept.
from the still-not-a-ton-of-money dept.
Arathon writes "The amazing '$100 laptop' designed by the 'One Laptop Per Child' program isn't going to make it out the door for that price. CNN reports that the laptops are now expected to cost $188 apiece when they come out later this fall. This is expected to make the program's appeal potentially much smaller, since the developers were relying on the mind-bogglingly low-price to hook governments into the concept of buying laptops for their people. OLPC's spokesman guarantees that the price won't rise further, to 'above $190'. The price differential is being blamed on raw materials costs and currency fluctuation. Is this the end of the OLPC's newsworthiness, or should we continue to hope that it will make the difference that so many have said it will?"
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Price will drop fast (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Price will drop fast (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
100 Lbs ! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh wait... Never mind.
Parent
Re:Price will drop fast (Score:5, Insightful)
currency fluctuation means everything bought in foreign countries with american dollars is currently much more expensive. Perhaps noticed:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6990570.stm [bbc.co.uk]
(this is again the price of the euro, but the situation is similar for several other currencies, I do not know where OLPC buys most of their components, but I guess they have to pay more in dollars now).
Parent
Currency "fluctuation" (Score:5, Insightful)
Currency fluctuation doesn't refer to inflation, but to the low exchange rate for dollar
> may raise this by $5 tops
The dollar has dropped 10% in value compared to second largest currency (the EURO) since the announcement of the OLPC.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
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A whole lot of factors, most of them boiling down to demand.
Central bank interest rates have some effect; they're one factor that can be used to encourage a demand for a currency.
As such, inflation is tied to, but neither exactly the cause or the effect of currency fluctuations. A drop in a currency will result in (possibly) measured inflation as the price on imports goes up, and get countered by a central bank (unless countered by deflation elsewhere), thus (possibly
Re:Currency "fluctuation" (Score:5, Informative)
Interestingly, several countries have started to use Euro for foreign trade because of the isntability of the dollar, oddly enough including North Korea.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurozone [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Price did not rise much outside of the USA. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not going to matter in Argintina, Brazil, Nigeria (well maybe there...), and so on.
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Re:Price did not rise much outside of the USA. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even expensive laptops are not produced in the US, and the reason is costs. In the USA it would cost you $100 per laptop to just power it up, check that it works, and put it into a box. I seriously doubt that you could squeeze into this price the large amount of manual labor that assembly of notebooks typically requires. Anyone who opened a notebook knows how complicated these things are, because they are so densely packed, and you can't really automate most of the assembly steps because they require human hands and vision and touch (like the tiny Molex connectors which must be installed with tweezers.) It's best, cost-wise, if these laptops never even come close to the USA.
Parent
Re:Price did not rise much outside of the USA. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Always a chance for the price to drop... (Score:2)
Ahem. Seriously. Sure, this might cause some deals to fall through, but it's still a cheap price for a functional self-contained computer.
Also, with time you'll get learning economies and economies of scale coming into effect.
Price difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Price difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Hehe, do you realize how deliciously ironic your post is [hothardware.com].
And that machine I link to is actually better than the OLPC. And will sell for the same price to everyone (you'll need to pay 2x or 3x the OLPC price to get it yourself). And can run Windows (XP and less) if need be.
In fact, what OLPC proved is, that commercial entities are already doing their best. Negroponte ranted left and right how the greedy vendors could make a cheap PC but couldn't, but now his dream is vaporware and he's arrived at a pretty pedestrian sublaptop, that has its analog for the same price with the good ol' commercial vendors.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, while I'm certainly going to snap up an ASUS Eee - it looks like an awesome little subnotebook, especially since laptops that size are usually only available as fancy $2000 machines - I'd also buy an OLPC if I got the chance. Being cheap is about the only thing they have in common.
The ASUS Eee is light and has a tiny screen (even for a subnotebook) and a 3 hour battery life, while the O
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My, my what a spec spin. Let me make one myself, using the official specs of the OLPC and Eee:
OLPC RAM: 256 MB;
Eee RAM: 512 MB;
OLPC storage: 1GB;
Eee storage: 4GB;
OLPC Screen: 7.5 inch;
Eee Screen: 7 inch;
(wait a sec, so Eee has tiny 7 inch screen and OLPC has huge 7.5 inch screen, I see, I see)
Re:To be fair (Score:5, Informative)
Sure, a Western adult would prefer an Eee - I can't wait to test drive one myself. But you omit a few other differences that demonstrate why OLPC is better for their target market - children in developing nations.
Eee networking - conventional wifi-to-Internet
OLPC networking - mesh ad hoc OR wifi-to-Internet
Eee screen - conventional indoor only
OLPC screen - unique dual-mode, clearly readable even in bright sunlight
Eee hardware - conventional non-rugged Western office / home environment; requires stable AC power
OLPC hardware - sealed against elements, child-tolerant; runs on AC power, hand or foot power, solar cell
Eee software - conventional Linux
OLPC software - highly customized for non-computer-literate children
Eee development - requires conventional developer tools; system restore requires external media
OLPC development - "show source" button allows children to explore and modify most aspects of the environment with nothing more than the built-in Python editor; and versioned filesystem ensures machine can be rolled all the way back to original state with no external media support
The OLPC is very unconventional, and is much better suited to children in developing classrooms than any other machine on the market. *That* is what makes it special, not an arbitrarily low price point.
Parent
Re:Price difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Does the Asus have its own manual power source, like the OLPC's crank or pedal? Nope? There goes everyone in the world without reliable electricity.
Does it have super-idiot-proof software? Not really. Heck, even I (as a fairly experienced computer-user) don't instantly understand half of OpenOffice's features. How is that gonna work for people who've (a) never used a computer before and (b) have no access to tech support?
Is it durable? Like, durable enough to make up for the fact that some potential users would have no access to any sort of computer repairs?
And so on. I'd personally prefer the Asus one, living here in the US with regular electricity, WiFi, and so on, but a whole lot of the OLPC's target audience would be using the Asuses (Asi?) as paperweights pretty quick.
Parent
Re:Price difference (Score:5, Insightful)
(1) The ASUS Eee PC is priced at $249. That is 30%+ more expensive than the OLPC XO-1.
(2) The ASUS Eee PC *only* *exists* because Intel hates the AMD-based OLPC project. Intel created and funded a competitive reference platform, the Classmate PC, and this forms the basis for the Eee PC.
Of course, the OLPC is a non-profit social welfare program that actually achieves its goals when it forces Intel to dramatically drop prices and cut zero-profit deals with the likes of, say, Pakistan.
This is not irony. This is *accomplishment*.
And yes, I'll be buying an Eee, and thanking *Negroponte* -- not Intel -- for making it happen.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Vapourware? That's weird. You see, I have an XO laptop sitting right here on my desk. It's remarkably massy, compared to most vapour.
I've been testing the laptop for almost a month now. In fact, when my other 'real' laptop's wireless went south, I switched t
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Right, but the dollar is dropping like stone for Asus as well, surely. How do you explain their price.
Re:Price difference (Score:4, Insightful)
Secondly, contrary to what you're blathering on about earlier, the ASUS EEE and the OLPC are hardly comparable. They don't target the same users or market. The OLPC is designed to be eminently durable (it's well sealed against dust and water), to last a long time on battery (it gets 2000mAh more than the OLPC to get 3 hours run time vs 5+ the OLPC offers), it has a monitor that's better suited to reading textbook style information on the computer, and is designed to have incredible wireless range, so it can serve as a mesh network node. And the ASUS recently became more expensive-$199 to $250.
You need to learn that "better" is a subjective metric when you're comparing stuff like this. Is a Cray faster at computing stuff than the computer on your desk? Absolutely--but that doesn't mean that a Cray makes a good desktop machine, any more than a desktop makes a good super computer. Each is completely unfit for the other's job. Apple and oranges.
Parent
ASUS Eee (Score:2, Informative)
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Plus
Only USD (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Or change the project name (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Or change the project name (Score:5, Funny)
Or just cut the children in half. Worked in the Bible.
Parent
Re:Or change the project name (Score:5, Funny)
What you need to do is duck tape a few together. Heck, tape them together in bundles of three and you'll have the 1.5 laptops per child p.
Parent
Name Change in order (Score:4, Funny)
According to Google Calculator
188 U.S. dollars = 92.7204577 British pounds
we've discussed this months ago (Score:3, Insightful)
It's OLPC's recent goal of being operating system agnostic, rather than linux specific. We know that specially tailored linux distributions can run on very old (and very cheap) hardware, but Windows and OSX can't. If the goal is to be able to run any operating system, then the specs have to be pretty recent, and that means more expensive hardware.
The issue is that OLPC are pressured into running Windows by American and other rich Western schools that like the idea of buying a cheap PC and don't care that much if the price is $100 or $190 as a result.
$90 is 90 days pay for poor people who live on $1 a day [wikipedia.org]. In those countries, the governments will never buy massive numbers of OLPCs, and at $190 a pop they'll even buy a whole lot less of them.
Never blame the market for problems that are real. (Score:4, Informative)
The OLPC has 256 MB of ram, and 1GB of flash memory. It can't run either of those operating systems. If they were trying to make it run these operating systems, they did a really poor job.
"The issue is that OLPC are pressured into running Windows by American and other rich Western schools that like the idea of buying a cheap PC and don't care that much if the price is $100 or $190 as a result."
That is speculation and it probably isn't true. I'd doubt reducing the hardware specs would make the laptop any cheaper. It just costs a certain amount to money to put a laptop together, and there's no amount of spec and feature reduction that can change that. The truth is that OLPC was largely unaware of the difficulties this kind of project would face. OLPC set an unreasonable goal for the price, and now they're coming to terms with the reality of the situation. Initially OLPC had said that the market wouldn't produce an inexpensive laptop because the profits weren't there. It turns out that the market wasn't making them because it's not possible.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How much do you think the 1GB flash and 256MB or ram are adding to the cost of this machine? I could buy them (not in bulk) for about $30. Do you honesty think it would be appreciably cheaper to use 256 and 32? It would cost a few dollars less at most (the cost of ram is not proportional to the amount purchased, as ram must be built in modules), and dramatically limit the functionality of the machine.
"One of the nice things with older hardware is that the factories alrea
Name change might be in order (Score:3, Funny)
Apple (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
even if it's just a crappy j2me,gprs, browser capable.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I might add as well that the Ipod Touch is a music/video portable player, and NOT a PDA (No matter how many people wish it WAS a PDA)
It's not about price (only).. (Score:5, Insightful)
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There is no revolution. It's just another piece of hardware.
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Oh really?
What other device is a wireless node and acts like a wireless mesh router even when powered off?
What other device has a 1200x900 screen that takes well under a watt?
Sure, it's not a huge leap ahead of other, similar devices - but the XO is definitely pushing the boundries of mobile computer design.
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So why, then, does everyone who sees the prototype I've been demo-ing walk away with stars in their eyes?
I've been working in ICT for over 15 years, and I've spent years in some of the most remote areas in the world, trying to extend the reach of the Internet in a way that's useful to the people who live there. Let me tell you that in all that time, I have never encountered anything quite so well-designed for its task as the XO laptop.
I've be
what is the REAL price? (Score:5, Interesting)
http://laptop.org/en/vision/progress/index.shtml [laptop.org]
You will notice that the price tag of 100$ per laptop initiates back in the end of 2004.
Now, I hope all of you here have heard about an economic phenomenon called inflation - the process where governments inflate money supply making your dollars buy less. Very few know that for the past decade or so the government has been massaging the official inflation numbers to make them appear lower - this allows them to make fewer and fewer payments on inflation adjusted liabilities such as social security. However, they still publish all the numbers one needs to calculate the actual inflation, and some people have been doing that, look for example here:
http://www.shadowstats.com/cgi-bin/sgs/data [shadowstats.com]
Notice how inflation has been running steadily at about 10% for the last few years. Today, the engineers who drafted the 100$ plan in the end of 2004 / beginning of 2005, should expect the cost to be 100*1.1*1.1*1.1 or roughly 135 dollars.
That already would take a lot of sensationalism out of the story. However, let's not stop here. Remember, the real culprit behind inflation is the money supply, and consumer inflation is usually the latest to price rising party. The money supply (as you may have noticed from previous link) has been running at 14% annually, causing serious mischief in prices of things like energy (http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/energy/index.htm) or metals (http://www.investmenttools.com/futures/metals/welcome_to_the_page_about_copper_futures.htm) - both are important for making technology.
Just for the sake of an example, let's trivialize the problem a little, and say that to make a laptop you need to spend 60% of your budget on metals, and 40% on energy (it's wrong, but I am just making an example). What would you expect to happen to the price of such laptop according the charts I linked to? Well, it would go up from 100$ to slightly over 200$.
So what is the real story here, engineers screwing up their designs, or governments inflating away the buying power of the dollar making the same thing cost twice more over 3 years?
Look at my links, do your research, decide for yourself.
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Re:rehash (Score:4, Interesting)
Notice that complaints are all getting marked down?
We're being punished for noticing.
Parent
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I believe the thought is that the previous attempts to provide infrastructure, hospitals and contraception have done little to impact the overall situation in Africa.
This attempt attempts to provide access to education and communication, with the thought that a better educated populace that has access to communication and technology would be able to improve their own quality of life.
Kind of like the "give a man a fish/teach a man to fish" adage. Plus, giving a community contraception and hospitals are real
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
For example, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich contains both peanut butter, as well as jelly.