Big Delays, Small Laptops: OLPC XO Recipients Mad 165
PCWMike writes to tell us about the growing concern over the failure of OLPC to deliver laptops to some of its customers. PC World editor-in-chief Harry McCracken notes that record-keeping was poor for some of the people who paid via PayPal. A report on LinuxJournal also suggests that customer information was lost due to errors in the database software used by OLPC. Quoting PC World:
"OLPC spokesperson Jackie Lustig acknowledges problems with the ordering and the fulfillment process, but says the biggest challenges are a short supply of XO laptops and the organization's ability to meet consumer demand for the XO laptop. Some also wonder whether chronic delivery problems for Give One, Get One donors may bode poorly for the 15 countries slated to receive nearly 500,000 XO notebooks. Lustig says delivering in bulk to just over a dozen countries is infinitely simpler than processing and delivering 80,000 individual laptops."
Money transferred but no accountability? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Money transferred but no accountability? (Score:5, Funny)
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Why am I not surprised? (Score:5, Interesting)
Starry-eyed desire to save the world is a good drive, but fulfilling the orders and delivering on the promises requires a lot of mundane work. One needs to get "all corporationy" to provide consistently good service...
Re:Why am I not surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
All OLPC needs to do is ensure they are able to focus upon delivery or subcontract those services out to a logistics company that can achieve those goals at a reasonable price. The logistics route is often simpler as those companies can readily handle break down packaging from bulk to individual orders as well as final delivery to the recipient and if required keep the recipient advised if there are any delivery delays.
Re:Why am I not surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
And the answer is not far at all... Just wait for these orders to finally arrive and people try to get support for them... Dell got a lot of flaming over outsourcing support to India — OLPC outsourced it to the even worse-trained rural teachers, etc. There'll be more horror-stories — watch this place.
Yes, I agree, that's one way to get "corporationy" — unless you can name a logistics co-op/commune, that is...
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So basically they are saying if we ship you a non working machine, fuck you? It is not our problem. Take it to then newsgroups. Doesn't give you much help if you are some barely literate slob with a fried CPU.
Sorry, that don't fly in most civilized countries. A product has to be fit for us and perform its function as advertised. There are also laws for timely deliveries. I thin 6 to 8 weeks is the standard.
Time to call the credit card companies and have the charges reversed. You did use a credi
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It is a product that you bought in good faith that it would be of usable condition. It is also expected to be delivered in a acceptable time frame.
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Oh yes, the corps. (Score:2)
Nintendo running out of Wii stock.
Waiting list for Asuss EEE PC? At least one month.
Those corps, so organized and ready to make business.
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I bought mine a couple of days ago from a discount electronics place. There was a bit of a rush before christmas but that happens with a lot of new products.
Re:Why am I not surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why am I not surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've just moved to the UK, and the incompetence of various companies has absolutely astounded me. I've just set up
Banking
Phone
Internet
Mobile Phones
Insurance
Not once - NOT A SINGLE TIME - has the company not cocked up something that has required me to phone them back (and queue on the phone) at least once. Several cases have require multiple such calls (the worst required me to ditch them and go with someone else). Seriously, corporations suck - in my experience they're much more hopeless than government organisations. I reckon that whoever says the opposite has an agenda.
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That's a good point, and it's true that one can't pick and choose governments, except by moving country.
Having said that, it seems to me that many (medium to large) companies are in such a position of power that they show almost complete disregard for their customers (and that this is quite consistent across companies). Does this really provide choice either?
In my mind, capitalism is just like democracy, except the strength of your vote
lets play monopoly! (Score:2)
Re:Why am I not surprised? (Score:4, Informative)
Where I'm from the government was providing all of the services, and some of the services you are listing — Internet, Mobile Phones — simply did not exist. To get a regular phone line, one had to wait in queue for years.
Yes, and whoever disagrees with me is a moron.
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Point taken - I should not have made an ad hominem comment - I expressed myself poorly.
What I was trying to say is that there are a lot of people trumpeting the virtues of the invisible hand of the market as solving all problems, and that government is inherently useless. I think some of those people have an agenda.
Where are you from? (Score:2)
It *is* simpler (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It *is* simpler (Score:5, Interesting)
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Most major manufacturers just ship a million units to a distributor, who adds a markup and then handles the mess of putting items in stores/homes/etc.
I'm not quite sure why the OLPC initiative doesn't just retail its laptops via a distributor. It would be less fuss for them, and more revenue which means lower laptop prices which means more laptops in the hands of kids. All they need to do is sell 10k la
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He is absolutely correct; a half-million units shipped to just 12 to 15 destinations *IS* simple by comparison. Just look at the complexities of UPS' operations in moving 80000 packages within the boundaries of the US, and that becomes apparent.
Sure, but they're not hand delivering the things themselves. All they needed was some decent software to keep track of orders, print labels, slap the labels on boxes, and ship the boxes via UPS. This, it seems, is what they FUBAR'ed.
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Yeah, go with UPS. The $100 laptop which now costs $200, is actually going to cost $300 once you account for shipping costs.
Cheaper than FedEx. OK, so ship it priority mail. The actual carrier doesn't matter, the point is they are using one, and they're not hand-delivering the things with their own trucks.
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You have to hire and train the people to do it. They have to get paid, taxes collected, schelde, deliveries must be timed shipping bills must be paid, boxes bought. Then you must make sure that the people do the work correctly and that they don't steal the notebooks.
It really isn't as simple as you think it is. Let's face it these people are note stupid but they are having problems with this. It only seems simple from the view point of arrogance and ignora
Re:It *is* simpler (Score:4, Insightful)
Shipping 100 units to 100 locations is simple.
Shipping 80,000 units to 80,000 locations is also simple, though the volume is orders of magnitude higher.
The problem is that they did not appropriately plan and acquire/devote resources to distribution. Maybe they didn't think about the extra cost associated with tracking and distributing those orders.
There is no reason why distribution of pre-orders should present any kind of challenge to a company. This is not on-demand shipping, or just-in-time delivery. This is simply basic distribution scaled up.
Maybe I'm a bit harsh, but there is simply no excuse for someone to promise deliverables without a plan to deliver them. Did they not expect so many orders?
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He is absolutely correct; a half-million units shipped to just 12 to 15 destinations *IS* simple by comparison. Just look at the complexities of UPS' operations in moving 80000 packages within the boundaries of the US, and that becomes apparent.
Tue, but UPS manages to do it effectively. So does Fedex.
By the way, UPS moves approximately 10,000,000 parcels per day, not 80,000. Fedex does around 7,000,000 per day. What's needed is professional logistics management, and that may end up costing more than this product will support.
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He is absolutely correct; a half-million units shipped to just 12 to 15 destinations *IS* simple by comparison. Just look at the complexities of UPS' operations in moving 80000 packages within the boundaries of the US, and that becomes apparent.
Tue, but UPS manages to do it effectively. So does Fedex.
But shipping things to people is what these guys do.
Getting me a laptop is not what OLPC does, this is just a one-off stunt, and the demand has overwhelmed them.
I'm not bothered by this much. So I have to wait a few weeks for my toy... so long as they keep doing what they do (large-scale high-tech charity), and doing it well, I will not fault them for sucking at what they don't normally do.
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But shipping things to people is what these guys do.
In fact, they are just carriers. Their customers are shippers. There is a difference and that's where OLPC has hit a speed bump.
Getting me a laptop is not what OLPC does, this is just a one-off stunt, and the demand has overwhelmed them.
Certainly seems so. In my former life, I was a logistics manager (then we called it warehouse manager) and this is a familiar scenario to me. Marketing people come up with a hot idea and, for some reason, assume things just magically arrive at the customer's doorstep. Leaving the operations and logistics people out of the loop was SOP for many businesses large and small. But,
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I'm not bothered by this much. So I have to wait a few weeks for my toy... so long as they keep doing what they do (large-scale high-tech charity), and doing it well, I will not fault them for sucking at what they don't normally do.
Well sir, you are the exception. In my experience, products that didn't ship in a timely fashion usually resulted in hundreds of angry phone calls, and later, truckloads of angry e-mails. All of which could have been avoided if there had just been more detailed logistics planning.
Well, it's a charity, and I waited 'till the last minute to finally give in, so I'm not reacting like I would if I was dealing with a business. :-)
Aside from that, well, thank you, I am exceptional!
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Please reconcile (Score:5, Insightful)
"OLPC spokesperson Jackie Lustig acknowledges problems with the ordering and the fulfillment process, but says the biggest challenges are a short supply of XO laptops and the organization's ability to meet consumer demand for the XO laptop....Lustig says delivering in bulk to just over a dozen countries is infinitely simpler than processing and delivering 80,000 individual laptops."
But how can that be, if the problem is short supply of the laptop?
Cheers,
Ian
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"Delivered by the holidays". Nope. "Delivered by Jan 15." Nope. Went to the website. "You can track your order...". Nope. All I get for a "tracking" result is a statement that almost all of the US units have been shipped, and that I can track my order at ... an invalid link.
I called them on the 18th. "Your address is invalid". Well, that address is valid enough that I get my c
Patience and Hope (Score:3, Insightful)
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Re:Patience and Hope (Score:4, Insightful)
And better yet to let a man fish [thp.org]. Or a woman, as the case may be (kind of insane to not allow the majority of your farm workforce to own property).
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I must be a luddite or a communist.
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There are better things to spend on, but long-term improving education is one of the best things to spend on for any nation including our own.
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Change the world? Hardly. It's just a laptop; it doesn't cure cancer, it doesn't feed hungry mouths, it doesn't provide shelter, it doesn't provide electricity, it doesn't cure AIDS, and it doesn't solve a whole other myriad of problems. It is a laptop.
Change the world? quite possibly. It's just an education. It can help cure cancer, it can help feed hungry mouths, it can help provide shelter, it can help provide electricity, it can help cure AIDS, and it can help solve a whole other myriad of problems. It is an education.
"This is not a laptop project; it's an education project," - Negroponte
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Peru's Sendero Luminoso, a guerrilla movement which triggered a protracted and bloody civil war, was the product of an educational project. During the 50's and into the 70's, it w
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Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day. Teach him a good grift, and he'll eat for weeks on his mark's dime.
They said it themself (Score:3, Insightful)
Saying this will happen to governments orders as well is very strange, and uncalled for.
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Horseshit. If you've put the systems in place and have an infrastructure even half thought out - it's pretty simple.
Why? The existing evidence implies that they haven't put much thought into their logistics pipeline.
I hate being so untrusting... (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that a lot of recent OLPC stories are being drummed up to try and discredit them, and it is a bit sickening.
No, I still don't have my XO... (Score:4, Informative)
...And I ordered on last day...and was charged (Score:2)
but blaming Microsoft is better? (Score:2)
Sorry but the majority of the OLPC bad press is because THEY DESERVE IT.
Did you ever think that some of their foolery needs an evil Microsoft just to dodge the issue? In other words - imply something that is not true but sounds good?
IOW - Political speech 101.
Talk about FUD.
Well trust *me* then... (Score:4, Interesting)
I've received a total of 3 different tracking numbers for my single laptop over the past 2 months. All 3 are invalid according to Fedex. I've called, verified that they have my correct address and been told my laptop was in the queue to ship a month ago. I was subsequently promised a delivery by the end of the year, then by January 15th, both of which have come and gone. Then they promised to reveal the shipping date by this Wednesday in an email sent on Monday. On Thursday they backed off of that claim, and said that hardware supply issues were at fault and assured me that I would receive another email at some point in the future with a shipping date. And so the saga continues...
Look, I'm cutting them a lot of slack because they're a non-profit trying to get off the ground and the primary goal here is to get laptops into the hands of needy children... but the problem is that they've been a model of evasive, unhelpful and secretive with regard to logistics problems from the start. If they had said, "hey we'll do our best to get you a laptop by March 2008" from the beginning, I think we all would have gone on with our lives, but for a not insignificant number of us, it's been one story after another -- all of which leads some of us to wonder whether the organization is hiding something with regard to our charitable donations.
Anyway, I fully comprehend that G1G1 logistics issues do not imply that they'll have problems fulfilling orders overseas. And in fact, the G1G1 program was for the most part an afterthought with regard to OLPC's primary mission. However, I think they've hurt themselves a great deal by not getting their act together with G1G1. Third-world purchase estimates have been cut by orders of magnitude since the heady days when Dr. Negroponte went around boasting that they wouldn't even talk to countries who weren't willing to buy a million laptops. The G1G1 program has become an instrumental tool in seeding laptop programs in places where reluctant national governments have backed off of early purchase promises. By pissing off G1G1 donors, they've essentially bit the hand that feeds them, and this will make it that much more difficult to realize Dr. Negroponte's original vision of one laptop per child.
What about the "give many" option? (Score:2)
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But as you and others have pointed out, OLPC isn't in the retail business, so I don't take their troubles with G1G1 fulfillment too seriously.
That's a real name? (Score:2)
Database Software Problem? (Score:4, Funny)
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Focus on what they do best? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Focus on what they do best? (Score:5, Informative)
Please see the draft flowchart, if you like:
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_laptop_delivery_works [laptop.org]
Seems a bit mean-spirited... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm in Canada, and waited 7 weeks for my XO to arrive. No biggie. I've waited almost as long for Dell to ship correctly configured servers on occasion. Those were biggies. Were my expectations appropriate for each company? I think so.
I'm sure that OLPC will honor all their commitments and get these orders out as soon as they can. Sometime s**t happens, and things falls through the cracks. People should just take a deep breath, and ask themselves if they'd rather have their XO right now, or have the one they donated delivered first.
G1G1 doesn't stand for "Get one, give one".
No, most people would be patient... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Seems a bit mean-spirited... (Score:5, Insightful)
Their core job is not to make and sell laptops to individuals. What would be great here (and if the free market really actually worked...), would be for a dedicated company to step in and sell the things directly to people in over-developed countries. That way the project can get on with developing and distributing to governments, and someone else can distribute to individuals.
Of course, they might cost slightly more because of the profit motive, but heck, most of them are seemingly being bought by geeks who already have 3 computers and can afford an extra $50 or so.
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on a personal note, living in ireland meant that i couldn't order one of these unforunately. so i went for an asus eee. the demand for those this side of the pond was incredible. ordered december 4 arrived jan 22. i had to get mine from the uk as our company hardware supplier gave up af
Maybe the problem is the non-profit part (Score:2)
But maybe you should ask PC manufacturers like Asus (manufacturer of the OLPC), people that, oh, I dunno, know a little something about logistics, cost management, customer service to put up bids when you actually want to get it done instead of running everything yourself.
Like what is the problem here. It seems that they had no idea or experience in doing logist
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Noble intentions do not excuse incompetence. Poor kids would be better served by someone with not-so-noble intentions that could actually deliver. An incompetent paladin is not the best man to have in your party, no matter how good his farts smell.
Thanks for providing a good example of the "mean spiritedness" that the previous poster referred to.
I (and all but one of my friends) got our OLPC laptops before Xmas without any delay or problems. My children (8 & 11) have been hacking at them ever since Xmas morning. My sample indicates that the OLPC project does a decent job of delivery - certainly better than most first-time-events in the field of international aid. Why are you criticizing, did somebody deliver your OLPC XO to an u
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We provide sheltered work programs and services for the disabled.
But we are in the business of bulk mailing, corporate promotions, fulfillment - and that is how we are judged by our customers. That is how we survive.
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OLPC initially insisted that they did not want to go into retail ("we're an education
Agreed. Haven't got mine yet, but no worries... (Score:2)
If the story was that OLPC lost all of their money backing a player in Texas Hold 'Em, I'd be pissed off. Instead, they're focusing on delivering laptops to the third-world and giving the gift laptop to the first world ran into some troubles.
Yep, I got several e-mails. First a few in December telling me I wouldn't get my laptop by x-mas.
Guys, guys, OLPC are a charity! (Score:1, Troll)
They don't have the funds to act like a real serious company. That would take millions of dollars of investment.
Oh, wait a second...
80,000 G1G1, at $400 per unit = $32,000,000. Since the "Give One" money really just goes into their general coffers, that's $16 million clear profit up front. A real startup would sacrifice its directors' children to be turn $16 million clear profit in 6 weeks.
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Err.. surely their "strongest advocates" would be keen to get the laptops to the children, which (after all) is the whole friggin point of the exercise!
For some reason, the term "fair weather friends" is coming into my mind...
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However, I thought the GGP was rather harsh in the comment. It seems to me that people are whinging not about the charitable org not doing what they promised with the $$ (ie. delivering XOs to kiddies), but rather that they don't have their shiny new toy...
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Yes, that's exactly what they're "whinging" about. Since they're $400 out of pocket and it's apparently their responsibility to fix it, I wouldn't categorise it as "whinging" though. The deal was Give One Get One, not Donate $400 Get None.
My primary "whinge" is that I want OLPC to succeed, and it really seems like they're doing everything possible to torpedo themselves. I think they need to let some grown ups run it for a while.
Headline clarity issues (Score:2, Interesting)
The actual article is "Big Delays for Small Laptops", it's some of the people who haven't received them yet who are upset.
I was expecting mine (in Canada) some time in February based on the initial delays in shipping to Canada. So I was quite pleased when it showed up last week.
I guess that make me somewhat ineligible to advocate patience if you're still waiting for yours, but I
Fish bowl (Score:1, Flamebait)
First Day Donors Got Theirs (Score:3)
The machine itself is really neat. The battery life and outdoors readability is much better than my personal laptop and it covers 90% of what I use my laptop for when I'm on the go anyways (Web browsing and using ssh to connect to boxes at work/home). If it weren't for the fact that the keyboard is too small for an adult for long periods of use, I might have replaced my laptop with an OLPC one.
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I'm really looking forward to the battery life and the outdoor readability myself. I've got a MacBook Pro right now and both of those are rather lacking. The outdoor readability is more due to my selection of the matte screen since I found
The should have just ... (Score:2)
... sold them through 3 or 4 hand picked online retailers, such as Amazon and Newegg and others. That way they could have bulk shipped them to those retailers and let the retailers handle the details like they are well experienced in doing.
They maybe shouldn't have listened (Score:2)
Does anybody know... (Score:2)
Does anybody know if there is a chance for the G1G1 thing to happen in Europe too?
I could have gotten one of my inlaws in the US (yes, my wife is from the USofA) to get one for me, but then the issue had been getting it over here... Norwegian Customs would likely have slapped a big fat import tax on it
Yes, there's a chance... (Score:3, Informative)
"At some point we might do it in Europe [pcworld.com]," said Walter Bender, OLPC's president,
go to the source (Score:2, Informative)
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_laptop_delivery_breaks [laptop.org]
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Working class? (Score:2)
You can't get replacement parts either (Score:2)
Don't worry there will be plenty on eBay soon (Score:2)
That's because individuals want what they paid for.
When a few pallet loads go missing, containing units that don't belong to any specific person, that's just another bureaucratic "meh"?
I suspect you will see plenty available on eBay once the bulk shipments get going in earnest.
Not mad at all (Score:2, Interesting)
I can wai
spammers die bloody (Score:2)
I'm a December 14th donor; while I'm a little disappointed that it hasn't reached me yet, I've no problem cutting OLPC quite a bit of slack, as what matters most is the "GIVE 1" part of the G1G1 program. There are plenty of articles showing that kids in less fortunate areas have started using them and they are a hit. Because OLPC is fulfilling that part of the promise, I will be patient and forgive them those delays, although I am somewhat less forgiving of the subcontractors (but not terribly so).
:)
I can wait a couple more weeks; the only thing that bugs me is that I can't play with it right now, as I've seen and handled an XO and it is so neat
Amen, brother. But this article got me following links, one of them gave a very basic hint I should have thought about before: Check your spam bin.
Turns out OLPC had been sending me status updates about the delays and whatnot, I was just not seeing them.
the silence is the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
But it's not the lack of laptops that's turning me from an interested and cheerful donor, to mild annoyance when it didn't show up before Christmas, to contemplating reversing the charges. It's the lack of information. Sure, there are delays. Sure, there are priorities for getting big shipments out to major educational recipients. But I gave these folks $850, and I don't even get the courtesy of a *status* message?
According to the schedule, mine should have showed up a month ago -- at the absolute latest. Before Christmas. I made the mistake of telling my kids about it, thinking I would teach them something about partnerships and donations, etc etc, and that's my own fault. But *still* even after phone calls and tracing and corrections... when I check the laptopgiving.org page, it tells me the order number is invalid, and that my email address is not found.
The kicker is that I work for a UN agency that manages large refugee aid programs, and I had to borrow an OLPC from a friend to show it to the Education & IT department directors. They're very interested in the OLPC, as it fits some of the educational needs pretty nicely. What am I going to tell these guys when they ask whether the project is well-run, has decent governance, and can deliver?
Sheesh.
-Jon
Normal to receive only a PayPal confirmation? (Score:2)
I consider my G1G1 order to mostly be a charitable contribution, so I'm fine if it takes them quite a while to ship my laptop. But I'd like to have some sort of confirmation from OLPC to let me know that they even realize I placed one. Did other folks receiving any other sort of
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I placed a G1G1 order near the end of 2007, and the only confirmation I ever received was a PayPal payment confirmation. Can anyone tell me if I should have received some sort of confirmation email from the OLPC Foundation itself?
I consider my G1G1 order to mostly be a charitable contribution, so I'm fine if it takes them quite a while to ship my laptop. But I'd like to have some sort of confirmation from OLPC to let me know that they even realize I placed one. Did other folks receiving any other sort of confirmation before being told that their laptop was supposed to ship at X date? I've tried contacting the OLPC folks, but I have never been able to reach anyone.
I had the same problem, turns out my confirmation email was in my gmail spam folder, I just found it there.
Get it, gawk it, give it away (Score:2)
Then, I gave it away;
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/devel/2008-January/009361.html [laptop.org]
I would encourage others who have received XOs and don't know what to do with them to do similar. Find a developer or someone who can r