Negroponte vs Intel

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."

The classmate hardware SUCKS, at least...

[nweaver]

IF targeting the 3rd world, the classmate sucks:

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.

Got my OLPC a few days ago

[pez]

I wanted to like the OLPC -- no I wanted to *love* the OLPC. I wanted to love it so much that I wanted to tell the world how awesome it was, and how everyone should participate in the give one get one program.

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.

How does Intel sleep at night?

[PlanetSmashers]

This is disgusting. In this day and age where corporate responsibility is a prominent issue, how can Intel go and try to sabotage a charitable organization? Is the Red Cross or Unicef next cause they may have AMD chips in their computers? Do they think they can capitalize on 3rd-world children? Will the dollar difference between the OLPC and Intel version be negligible to those people? What hot-shot marketing guru thought this gem up, was it Scrooge McDuck?

I would like to see Intel publicly humiliated for this. Personally, this changes my decision to use Intel in my next computer. *sigh*... Why does the devil have to make chips?

Re:Is there a hidden 3rd party?

[fwarren]

Refusing low-priced laptops because they run Windows is as misguided

The difference is that the OLPC is:

1. Is designed to last. One OLPC that lasts 5 years is cheaper than 3 Classmates that only last 18 months each.
2. Is designed to "mesh" to get internet out to the child farthest from the village. Let me know when Windows XP has a "mesh" update for their wireless stack.
3. Is packaged with educational software. Microsoft and Intel have not developed any educational software that will go for "free" on these machines. And purchasing more software for the classmate only drives the price up.

Well, Groves already set out his stall...

[hughbar]

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/grove/paranoid.htm [intel.com] with 'only the paranoid survive'. Hey, those bleeding-heart commies have taken business that is rightfully OURS, that means war.

I'm fighting back this year by buying more and more from employee-owned (John Lewis, I'm from the UK) organisations, cooperatives (Telephone Coop, local credit union), mutuals (Royal London) and anything else that doesn't have shareholders and then lastly for-profits with a verifiable social agenda and a record of honourable behaviour (harder and harder to find though).

I'm having a hard time explaining that open-source/Windows is an ethical choice too, many people here seem to only understand that in the context of food-miles and sweatshops, not in the context of technology.

As I work for non-profits, they often say 'we get really good discounts from Microsoft', so we don't want any, without considering the deeper implications. I now send them to this: http://www.freegeekvancouver.org/en/node/125 [freegeekvancouver.org] comprehensive and well-stated.

Re:Is there a hidden 3rd party?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we are sure they did use the same tactic already on a market where the Classmate is sold with Linux:
http://blog.mandriva.com/2007/10/31/an-open-letter-to-steve-ballmer/ [mandriva.com]

Can't we accept that maybe the wintel evil couple still exist?

Re:Negroponte

[hhas]

"Classmate specs are better than XO. There is a bit of goods in XO hardware, but not all that much"

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...

Re:Got my OLPC a few days ago

[pez]

Hey guys.... yes, I get it, it's not for me. I really, truly, 100% understand that it's not for me. That doesn't mean that I can't have an opinion on whether it's good for kids because in addition to having two kids of my own (one of whom is old enough to use computers), I've been designing user interfaces for about 12 years now.

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]

Re:Negroponte

[debrain]

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 received because they breached the contract. The choice of which compensation applies often comes down to economics, for example Posnerian efficiency. However, any promisor has the right to break a contract (the general policy against which is that forcing an individual to complete a contract is in essence slavery). The court of equity speaks otherwise (allowing for 'specific enforcement': forcing the promisor to fulfill their end of the bargain), but is generally only turned to where the common law is unjust.

All that being said, the law is expensive to enforce, and in international bargains it may be different and difficult to find justice because of issues with jurisdiction, enforcement, substantive applicable law, and expense, meaning that breaching a contract amounts to what may be seen as, and is in effect, a form of theft.

Classmate vs. OLPC

[CustomDesigned]

While the Classmate is more powerful than OLPC, it also uses 10 times the power. Intel had to donate generators to their pilot projects before they could use the classmate. OLPC can run on hand cranks. I would say the Classmate is a better fit for industrialized countries with easy access to clean power, but not for the places OLPC is trying to reach. I believe that Classmate also doesn't have mesh, so that connectivity from the school would only reach as far as a WAP.

Re:Got my OLPC a few days ago

[grumbel]

### 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.

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 button in the Activity menu or you do it via the Task Manager/Home thing. There might be a few applications that are out of line, but that should be fixable without to much trouble and isn't a problem with the overall UI design.

Re:Got my OLPC a few days ago

[SciFi_WaBobby]

I agree 100% about your assessment of the hardware and the software. The build that was delivered with the Give 1-Get 1 hardware was weak. In many ways it was a beta, at best. BUT, in my opinion this isn't so bad since all the software is FOSS. I can wait another 4-6 months for the project to clean up the software and then I'll download the updates. No big deal. And heck, you can contribute by submitting bugs, enhancement suggestions, and code to the project. I think that's pretty cool!

Poor Documentation

[ISoldat53]

I agree. The support wiki is full of holes but it seems to be getting filled out. The great advantage I see in the buy-one-give-one program was to get it in the hands of people in the FOSS community that can find such weaknesses and fix them. We can support OLPC by developing applications and providing input to the project.

patch it

[Scrameustache]

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" ;-)

This is why I've used AMD for years

[mlwmohawk]

Intel is no different than Microsoft, does anyone remember Zylog? Intel will do to chip makers what Microsoft will do to software makers.

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:Emulation is your friend

[Psykechan]

Something Pez forgot to mention is that you can emulate [laptop.org] an XO relatively painlessly. There is even a premade image file that is available that you can drop into say QEMU [bellard.free.fr] and see what it's all about.

A few caveats: Use something with virtualization which unfortunately means x86. Trying to run this emulated on a high end PowerPC system was saddening. Yes it is only a 433MHz target, but 433MHz is pretty high when you think about it. The other thing to keep in mind is that the premade image wants to change the display to about 1024x768 instead of the XO native 1200x900. The Sugar manager seems to be fine with it but most activities (XO apps) will not display properly.