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Negroponte vs Intel
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Wed Jan 09, 2008 09:35 AM
from the in-this-corner dept.
from the in-this-corner dept.
Yogi_Stewart_4 writes "More OLPC/Intel love — apparently Intel used 'underhanded' tactics to try to block sales' contracts of the OLPC, trying to reach the customer directly after an agreement had been reached.
"They would go in even after we had signed contracts and try to persuade government officials to scrap their contract and sign a contract with them instead. That's not a partnership."
Mr Negroponte cited an example in Peru where Intel sales staff tried to persuade the country's vice-minister of education, Oscar Becerra Tresierra, to buy the Intel Classmate PC."
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Is there a hidden 3rd party? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sticking with AMD (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I'm sticking with AMD (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Is there a hidden 3rd party? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's more along the lines that the entire portable industry has ignored the "subnotebook" market that the OLPC project has shown to be extremely viable, and are now trying en mass to jockey for position.
They supported Negroponte just far enough to basically test the waters, making sure there really WAS a market, then once the "useful idiot" outlived his usefulness, well, out come the daggers.
That's what innovation means nowadays in the computer industry: Wait for someone else to do something interesting, then steal the idea and market it faster than he/she can. I hope Negroponte's project survives this nonsense.
Parent
Re:Is there a hidden 3rd party? (Score:5, Insightful)
The connections in this and other cases are pretty obvious for even the lay person to see. Further, it has been demonstrated that Microsoft knows no shame nor boundaries in their efforts to buy, push or influence governments and other businesses to do their bidding.
If you've got a dog that has been historically pooping on your carpet and you come home today and find poop on your carpet, you're going to look for the dog!
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Re:Is there a hidden 3rd party? (Score:5, Informative)
The difference is that the OLPC is:
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Re:Is there a hidden 3rd party? (Score:4, Insightful)
Comparing the OLPC to low priced laptops is an apples and oranges comparison. You are comparing an educational device for kids to a general purpose computing device with no specific user in mind. They just aren't comparable.
Parent
Total Lack of Ethics (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a big black mark against Intel and should serve as a warning to future partners that they can't be trusted at all. I mean you can't get much worse publicity than "deliberately sabotaged a charitable organization". Maybe the CEO of Intel would like follow it up by kicking puppies and eating babies?
Re:Total Lack of Ethics (Score:5, Funny)
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Intel and MS (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think MSFT is the driver, more of a means to an end for Intel. Their interests are aligned at some level but mainly Intel wants to sell chips. I'm guessing they don't care which OS runs as long as they can keep a finger in the emerging market pie.
MS and Intel have common goals, but that could change.
What's more interesting is the callous, self-serving manner Intel is undermining a project trying to help people. It's pathetic. Lacking in even basic decency. You can claim corporations exist only for profit but it hasn't always been that way. It's a fairly recent development that we have have, at least corporately, started to turn into the Ferengi. And there are limits. When you start undermining humanitarian projects in order to protect your market position, you're over that line.
Maybe Negroponte should just pull off the gloves and make a deal with Wal-Mart and Costco to carry OLPC's. Use the profits to donate machines to developing nations. Or use the profits to cut schools in this country a big discount. If Intel and MS want a war, give them a war.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Go Apple! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Let Intel know what you think (Score:4, Interesting)
Corporate Mailing Address
2200 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95054-1549
USA
(408) 765-8080
A phone call or a snail mail letter will go a long way toward letting Intel know it crossed the line.
Intel's Business Code of Conduct (Score:4, Insightful)
Negroponte has a right to be upset. Intel shouldn't have been doing this against ANY competitor, must less one that they were cooperating with.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Customers of companies like WalMart and Intel don't do it anywhere near enough.
The classmate hardware SUCKS, at least... (Score:5, Informative)
a) There are cooling holes on it! Hello dirt and debris.
b) The keyboard is non ruggedized, at least compared to the XO.
c) It uses a conventional montior arrangement rather than the OLPC "behind the monitor" arrangement. This means that it has a complex, wire heavy connector through the hinge rather than just a USB and power connection.
I don't see how the classmate could last 6 months in a third world environment.
I question some of the OLPC's intent, but their hardware design blows away that Intel POS its not even funny.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
But the hardware design really is vastly better. The hardware on the XO is brilliant. You could make a "big keyboard" version and sell it as is to the military for $2000 a copy, its that rugged.
Just some of the weaknesses of the Classmate's design in comparison (beyond the 50% higher price tag):
a: Cooling openings are a weakness and unnecessary in a device which should be passively cooled. (Du
Got my OLPC a few days ago (Score:5, Informative)
Then mine arrived in the mail.
Initial reactions were off the charts. The packaging was even excellent! The machine is sturdy, well-built, solid, cleverly designed, rugged, and absolutely perfect for it's purpose. I can't say enough about how many of the design decisions were fantastic. The keyboard was perhaps smaller than I had anticipated, but with the intended use case scenarios even that didn't detract from the brilliance of the hardware.
And then I turned it on.
Anyone who says that the interface is revolutionary or different is trying to put a nice spin on it. Yes, some of the organization and terminology is novel, and one could even praise some of the attempts at getting you to re-think how computers work. But the entire thing feels astonishingly like X Windows from the late 1980s. The interfaces are clunky and inconsistent, and worst of all it suffers from a pervasive design philosophy of "because we could" not "because we should." I could easily forgive a lack of graphical polish, but it's much more difficult to forgive the nearly-20-year giant leap backwards in interface design.
I know what the slashdot crowd is thinking... "it's open source! Write a new UI yourself!" but that's not the point. My point is that I wish the OLPC project had spent half the effort on the software that they did on the hardware -- if they had, then maybe we really would have a device that would change the world. Who knows... maybe a version 2 will have a new UI that actually will.
They didn't make it for you (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It may not matter. The Sugar UI is an adequate application (sorry, "activity") launcher and the applications themselves are individually good.
There were many valid reasons for building a completely new UI from the ground up, and many of the unfamiliar and "different" ways of doing things are the result of an attempt to meet different needs, and originality.
Still, the implementation is currently a mess and simply does not achieve the visions articulated in the st
Re:Got my OLPC a few days ago (Score:4, Funny)
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Poor Documentation (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Got my OLPC a few days ago (Score:4, Informative)
If you haven't tried out the UI yet, I suggest you do. And if you're an old fart like me who knew what X Windows looked like in the 1980s you'll agree that it's eerily familiar. And that's not a good thing.
Simple things like closing an application-- err activity-- are inconsistent from activity to activity. I found at least three different ways depending on the activity. Sure, kids will figure it out... smart kids figure out everything. That doesn't mean it's a good UI or even an acceptable UI. For every brilliant kid that will be a whiz at this thing I suspect there will be at least a few who, after trying to use it, will say that other alternatives are preferable. Remember.... the OLPC is not alone in this marketplace and this article is titled "Negroponte vs. Intel" and my assertion is that unless the software on the XO improves, he's going to continue to lose contracts to the classmate.
[Note: in no way am I trying to say that Windows is "better"... I f'ing hate Windows. But the OLPC's software is so bad that anything -- and I truly mean anything -- that is currently being actively developed in 2007 is better]
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
I don't really see how Sugar is anything like X Windows back in the 1980s. I agree that it is not really revolutionary, it is basically the same thing like every other OS, with the difference that applications are running in fullscreen. But I don't see what should be so bad about the interface. Closing an application quite consistently, you either press the Stop but
patch it (Score:3, Informative)
Simple things like closing an application-- err activity-- are inconsistent from activity to activity. I found at least three different ways depending on the activity. Sure, kids will figure it out... smart kids figure out everything. That doesn't mean it's a good UI or even an acceptable UI.
Wouldn't that be because all those activities were developed independently from one another?
;-)
In the rush to get everything done on time I'm betting no one coordinated their UI ideas with everyone else, and now each activity is built from the ground up without a unifying lead.
That's why god invented "version x.2"
If I did something like that, I would be fired (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were to try and sell against a signed order, I would be fired. Immediately. With no chance of appeal.
Encouraging a customer to break a signed contract could get both the customer and my company sued by the competitor for contract interference, and rightly so.
SirWired
Remember what OLPC is! (Score:3, Insightful)
The idea is to improve education in poorer countries, and the laptops are a means to an end, not an end in themselves. Intel's laptop sabotages the OLPC goal because it is a laptop project, not an education project. Remember that the OLPC comes with education based software and even has a "show me the code" button not to mention a screen which is very suitable for reading electronic books. They are carefully designed for education. Intel's laptops aren't. Therefore, competing with OLPC sabotages the goal of better education for poorer people.
Oh, and just to cover the other point, no, you can't eat a laptop, but that's not their purpose: they are not disaster relief tools either, they're education tools.
Intel invested heavily -- big stakes (Score:4, Insightful)
Very telling indeed, but not in the way he intends it. He's basically saying they have high stakes in this market and, being a corporation, they expect a return on this investment.
He's basically giving away the motive for Intel to do such rotten things to the OLPC project.
Move on. (Score:3, Insightful)
Negroponte would do well to put the Intel relationship behind him. This is turning into a "he said v. they said" argument.
Of course, Negroponte could use these tactics to generate more buzz for OLPC at Intel's expense (regardless if it is actually true).
I'm not saying which side is right. I am saying Negroponte needs to move on... Jesus, how many more of these OLPC v Intel stories do there need to be?
This is why I've used AMD for years (Score:3, Informative)
I can't say AMD is more ethical, but it is at least a counterpoint to the Intel near monopoly of P.C. CPUs.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Negroponte (Score:4, Interesting)
Somehow, it just doesn't seem to be a very efficient or effective way to get laptops to these kids. It is also a very good example of how the Classmate PC is not in the same league as the XO in its design goals.
So maybe Negroponte is on the warpath to keeping diesel fumes away from kids.
LoB
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
OLPC laptops are more open, more free, better designed, and less expensive. Intel ClassMate PC's are proprietary, less rugged, and require more power to operate. Worst of all they are for-profit, and those profits are sent to Intel stock holders, making wealthy business men wealthier at the expense of money which would better be used satisfying an educational need in the exact same arena as the laptop was advertised as intending to assist. They unnecessarily drain valuable resources from the very market they are pretending to aid.
Basically this is about as disgustingly slimy as I think they are able to be.
Parent
Classmate vs. OLPC (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
If Intel cared about the kids and not their profits
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Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
It signed agreements with OLPC, so it has a responsibility to live up to that. "Maximising profits for shareholders" does not make it okay to break contracts, lie, cheat or steal, despite what many MBAs seem to think.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It signed agreements with OLPC, so it has a responsibility to live up to that. "Maximising profits for shareholders" does not make it okay to break contracts, lie, cheat or steal, despite what many MBAs seem to think.
While the other examples are clearly heinous, there is no law against breaking contracts. However, there are consequences to breaking a contract, notably the obligation to compensate those to whom you had made a promise by one of three ways in the common law: putting them in as good a situation as they were in before the contract was made; putting them in as good a situation as they ought to have been in after the contract had been fully executed; or giving them the benefit the promisor defaulting had rece
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
A corporation's actions are dictated by the weakest morals of it's leaders.
Corollary: The simplest way to make a corporation good is to have a strong ethical leader. I guarantee that the leaders involved in working with OLPC are honest people. I also guarantee the leaders involved in knee-capping OLPC are dishonest. A strong leader would find one personality for the company, and enforce it on the troops. Weak leaders allow multiple personalities to come forward when convenient.
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
No, he wants kids to have good laptops and good educational materials. The Intel Classmate PC does not qualify on either count!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Intel should not have signed a non-compete agreement then.
It might be ok if they were just cold-calling countries.
It is a little shady if they try negotiating with countries which they already know OLPC is negotiating with.
It is downright unethical for them to go and ask countries to break their contract for OLPC's to get an Intel product.
It is
Re:Negroponte (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-profits and for-profits are more alike than people think. If a non-profit doesn't pay the electricity bills, the lights go off. If a non-profit program doesn't reach sufficient volume, its unit costs go through the roof because of the fixed costs are amortized over fewer units. Just like a for-profit.
The difference between non-profits and for-profits is why they do what they do, not how.
If there are 270,000 children who need laptops in Peru, a non-profit would try to equip as many of them as humanly possible. A for-profit will try to equip the number of children which would maximize its profits. For example, suppose Intel's profits are maximized by equipping 135,000 children in Peru. The government would buy more if the price were lower, but Intel's profit margin would be lower. Intel could increase its unit margin so that it made more on each PC, but Peru would buy sufficiently fewer that the net profits would decrease.
The difference between a non-profit and a for-profit is that a for-profit never considers costs that are external to itself, such as the cost of 135,000 children who grow up without access to information and the world economy. A non-profit internalizes as much of that cost as possible.
When two for-profits compete, they try to poach the plum contracts from each other, and it doesn't matter. They both act in exactly the same way, so the differences between the two are small. When either looks at a population of 270,000 customers, 135,000 of which don't have enough money to play, they see a market of 135,000, give or take a few, plus 135,000 non-entities who they have no intention of serving. When they compete with each other, the more efficient of the two might equip 140,000, and the less efficient might equip 120,000, and so market efficiencies maximize the public benefit, if the only choice is between two entities that weigh the public benefit in exactly the same manner.
When a for-profit cherry picks the plum contracts from a non-profit, it's a different matter altogether. The efficient for profit equips 140,000 where the non-profit would equip 270,000. What's more the non-profit can't pick up the slack, because (a) there's no money and (b) they are amortizing their costs over fewer units so they can no longer provide product at lower prices than the for-profit.
Right or wrong? You decide. But it's certainly about more than personal ego. It's about educating students whom it is not profitable to equip; and if it is not profitable, it will never happen.
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that Negroponte has an ego (but everyone is seizing on the fact the man DOES have a big ego...)
but that Intel didn't live up to it's promises. If the stunt in Peru is provable, then Intel DOES have
a big bit of explaining to do- and what Negroponte has been saying isn't QUITE the "hogwash" they're
claiming it is.
It's not that he doesn't want laptops in the hands of kids. He wants education TOOLS in the hands of
kids. Unfortunately, all the Classmate devices seem to be is indoctrination tools for Microsoft products
as opposed to engines to be re-worked, etc. to teach thinking in addition to knowledge. OLPC's goal is
that. All the Classmate seems to be is discounted Windows stuff for kids and calling it "education".
I've a problem with that.
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Informative)
Depends on your definition of 'better'. I don't think the OLPC hardware should be underestimated. The Classmate may have a faster processor and more storage, but it also has a shorter battery life, no 'e-book' mode, no mesh network, isn't nearly as rugged or user serviceable, and costs more. Given that a 366MHz processor and 128MB RAM is a perfectly respectable combo as long as the software is tuned for it, flexibility and longevity ought to be a more significant factor than raw [on-paper] grunt.
There's a nice recent take-apart here:
http://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=218 [bunniestudios.com]
Obviously a great deal of thought and design has gone into these beasties. If only my own (much-battered) machines were built like that...
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that power saving is connected to the first two items. The XO mesh can forward packets while the motherboard is sleeping. Arguably, this can be done if the Classmate adopts the same Marvell radio and firmware. Similarly, e-book mode can also run without the motherboard awake, because the framebuffer is powered independently. I'm not sure if any of the G1G1 people tried it but I think the e-book battery life should be around 24hr.
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:4, Insightful)
What about innovative features that the XO embodies? The sunlight readable screen, the tablet like e-book mode, the ultra low power capabilities, the mesh networking? Admittedly, you could argue that the mesh networking is as much software as hardware, but the hardware is a part of it.
In addition, is the Classmate as rugged as the XO?
I don't think just adding Sugar to the Classmate would match up. I submit that despite the higher specs on CPU speed, RAM, and storage, the Classmate hardware represents inferior hardware for the stated purpose as compared to the XO. Those specs are not very significant to the mission that both these units claim to aim at. The hardware advantages that the XO brings to the table *do* make a difference to that mission.
And it wouldn't be easy to save a ton of money by dropping Windows. MS is deathly afraid of non-MS OSes taking hold in the developing world -- they are offering Windows in that market at $3 a pop.
Parent
Re:Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is sheer stupidity! Learning Windows is not what children need to compete in the global job market. A good education is what they need. Something that Negroponte, the educator, and Papert, the master behind the scenes who has devoted his life to studying how children learn, understand a bit better than Intel's sales flacks.
Parent