OLPC Downsizes Half of Its Staff, Cuts Sugar 379
One Laptop Per Chewbacca writes "Nicholas Negroponte, the leader of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, has announced that the organization will be laying off half of its staff, cutting salaries of the remaining employees, and ending its involvement in Sugar development. The organization has had serious problems with production and deployment and has been fragmented by ideological debates as Negroponte shifts the agenda away from software freedom and towards Windows. Ars Technica concludes: 'The OLPC project's extreme dependence on economy of scale has proven to be a fatal error. The organization was not able to secure the large bulk orders that it had originally anticipated and fell short of meeting its target $100 per unit price. The worldwide economic slowdown has made it even more difficult for OLPC to find developing countries that have cash to spare on education technology.'"
Be Warned (Score:5, Insightful)
If you're changing your original goals (I'm thinking particularly about Sugar here) mid-way through, you'll crash faster.
Re:Be Warned (Score:5, Informative)
Then again, it looks like they're not dropping Sugar completely, just "Passing on the development of the Sugar Operating System to the community."
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
BoycottNovell is an amazing organization.
That is, amazing in how insane they are. They are the epitome of the knee-jerk crowd that taints open source. They and DefectiveByDesign (hello, Genius Bar Invasion bullshit) are the two that come to mind when I think of people doing a lot to hurt the causes they say they're for.
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:5, Informative)
If you don't run the Mac OS, you are not who the Genius Bar serves. Harrassing employees is extremely disrespectful IMHO. If you got me, I would have said, "You can run Ubuntu in Parallels, X comes with every copy of the Mac OS X, and many Linux distros do not support EFI out of the box."
--Sam
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not true.
Windows users of iPods/iPhones are just one example of a non-Mac OS user going for support at a genius bar. They also provide pre-sales advice.
And Parallels is non-free software. I'm kinda glad more things don't support EFI. EFI is pretty terrible for freedom.
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Those idiots had no intention of buying Apple products--they were doing it for the hur-hur-hur "nerd cred" that comes from doing something so titanically stupid. The grunts on the ground aren't going to change Apple policy and the people who do wouldn't have even heard of the stupid little stunt. It was an idea conceived of by the basement dwellers and reaffirmed by the echo chamber of fellow gnulots that don't understand how the world actually works (and how that differs from how somebody might want it to
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:5, Insightful)
As for what the OLPC was supposed to be for... I don't think anyone ever really decided. Every time I've brought up what it was for, I have been lambasted that I had it all wrong. So, I went to their website, and all I could find was a bunch of Dilbert style buzzword bingo.
If as you say, it was intended to be an educational tool for things like spelling, math and to work together, then the mesh network was a horrible idea. In fact the entire project was over engineered from the get go. I could easily build a computer for math, spelling and simple programming for under $100 at single unit retail pricing. Even adding the criteria that it would run from a hand crank and be MORE durable than the OLPC. REAL engineers with access to bulk wholesale pricing should be able to do far better than me.
Personally, I think the OLPC was just a way to get free R&D by convincing people that the money they were donating was for charity.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:4, Insightful)
That was another big problem, they didn't have a clear set of examples of what it was actually FOR. As it was though, it was a glorified netbook.
My country (Uruguay) was the one that invested the heaviest in OLPC (all the school-age kids are getting it), and the main problem is not the computers themselves, or Sugar OS or whatever... it is that there wasn't a plan in place to actually use them for something worthwile (textbooks, etc..).
Teachers are NOT happy about that.
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee, it's almost like all those people who said that just throwing a bunch of laptops at kids isn't going to magically help them actually knew what they were talking about.
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree about the elitist attitude. Since when is intelligence and the application of knowledge considered elitists on a nerd/geek forum, lest keep the idiotic redneck point of view on myspace et al where it belongs, the elitists are the rich, greedy and pseudo celebrities. So Nicholos kicked off the OLPC which focused some real attention on bridging the global digital divide and the importance of being able to provide accessible low cost computing to make the knowledge of the world available to the children of the world.
As it is the OLPC really helped to kick off the growth of Linux on netbooks and establish it it as the future of education for children upon a global basis. As for the future of the OLPC well M$ did put the kybosh on it that by whispering sweet 'nothings' into Nicholos's ear with the intent of souring the project because of course low cost PCs in the hundred dollar range is the death of an operating system, office suite combination that basically quadruples the fully function cost of that hardware.
So the OLPC project brought focus to the problem and did it's job in demonstrating what could be done and now a range of hardware software solutions are evolving to provide the needed solution, low cost netbooks with a FOSS software stack for the education market.
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:5, Insightful)
I could personally build a rugged hand powered computer for under $100 from single unit retail priced parts, but the OLPC group thought that wired networking and 8 bit processors were beneath them. If they were going to make a machine, it wasn't going to be a rugged really low cost machine. It was going to be a machine that made the 1st world envious, even if that meant that the 3rd world couldn't really afford it.
The OLPC group were elitist because they were not going to soil their hands with FOSS software that already exists, and would run just fine on the hardware they built. No, they insisted that they could write a better desktop than the ones with hundreds of thousands of man hours already put into them.
No, MS and Intel did not kill the OLPC. The OLPC is dieing because instead of building a machine that would bring computing to the 3rd world, they built a machine for well to do Americans and then didn't want to sell them to them. Heck, they would have been better off buying truck loads of Nintendo DSes and R4s than what they did.
So, no, it isn't the spread of knowledge that makes them elitists. It is the fact that they are unwilling to spread that knowledge if it doesn't stroke their ego and make them cool.
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:4, Insightful)
What makes them elitists is that they were not going to soil their exclusive clientel by allowing those dirty first world kids to buy one, even if that means the 3rd world kids cannot get the benefit of economies of scale
That's not elitist. That's just being stubbornly doctrinal and a bit naive. Frankly, Apple is a bit more elitist, since you've got to have a fair bit of cash to get the hardware. Linux, while not quite elitist, is certainly selective in that you must be more industrious and inquisitive than the average computer user to use it.
Yes, the OLPC project should have simply sold XO units to whom ever had the cash. That's what a for-profit company would have done. Attempting to leverage the wealth of the industrialized nations to support the 3rd world ones isn't such a bad idea. I bought an XO in the first round of G1G1. It was $400, which wasn't an onerous hardship for me at the time.
Why wasn't the G1G1 programming running ALL THE TIME? I still don't understand that at all. It's like these guys wanted to do a soft launch with their hardware.
Negroponte is considered something of a demigod at MIT, having founded the Media Lab. But I do think he executed poorly on this project because of his lack of business experience. I wonder if his brother would have done better.
Frankly, I never did cotton to the Sugar UI (let's stop this talk of it being an OS please). I'm now running Ubuntu on the XO and I'm happier for it. Running XP on the XO hardware will be a joke.
Re:Wrecked to be wrecked. (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything about Negroponte and the OLPC is elitist. The project was doomed to failure from the beginning and the only positive was the creation of the netbook market. They assumed (like do-gooders everywhere) that their good intentions would pave the way to success; now they blame evil bad everyone else when their pipe-dreams turn to shit in the face of reality.
A Thought Experiment: you are the Secretary of Education of a poor, small, rural and backward 3rd world nation with an even smaller budget. Do you:
a) buy quirky, beta-quality hardware running quirky, beta-quality software that is only being peddled to other poor, small, rural and backward third world nations.
OR
b) go with mainstream hardware and mainstream software that does the same things the rest of the world is doing?
You're just as elitist as they are for assuming you know what's best for the aforementioned countries. Pull your head out of your dirty hippie ass - the market is going to win out and a successful OLPC project would seek to harness existing manufacturers rather than bypass them. Did you really think Intel and Microsoft would stand by and watch their paradigm be destroyed? Please note that I am neither defending nor condoning their actions but merely noting their inevitability.
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Re:Be Warned (Score:4, Interesting)
Alan Sugar would have been hilarious in this project. When he bought Sinclair they were working on a ridiculously half assed flat CRT display for a project called Pandora. Guy Kewney had a demo and said that "You put your chin on a leather chinrest and refocused your eyes and after a few seconds you could see four lines of twenty green characters floating eerily in the infinite distance". Alan Sugar attended a demonstration too, and after than Sinclair stopped mentioning the project. Kewney asked him and the converation went like this
GK: "Do you plan to use the technology in the Pandora project commercially?"
AS: "Have you seen it?"
GK: "Yes"
AS: "Well then."
Pandora was a classic Sinclairism really. LCDs were expensive so they tried to find a cheaper alternative but they didn't have the resources, or the industrialisation skills to make it work. By the time they burned through lots of funds on research, LCDs were cheaper and far outperformed their quirky bent CRT design. Mind you I bet the Japanese spent far more getting LCDs to that point.
Actually it turns out that they didn't invent the bent CRT, and weren't the only company trying to commercialise it.
http://www.thevalvepage.com/tv/sinclair/ftv1/ftv1.htm [thevalvepage.com]
Although Sinclair seems to get credited for the invention of the unusual C.R.T., it was in fact the brain child of Doctor D. Gabor in the mid 1950's (follow this link for a period magazine article [thevalvepage.com]). Yet having spent 6 years developing the set, Sinclair was actually pipped to the post by a similar sideways tube design from Sony. However the writing was on the wall for this type of C.R.T. ; in 1977, when sSinclair lauched their first pocket TV (the MTV1) Hitachi displayed a prototype television that was the first to use a new display technology, namely LCD. Then in the same year as this FTV1 model was lauched Casio (and possibly Seiko) launched the first production televisions utilising an LCD screen.
Re:Be Warned (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the problem is that their goals are wacky. Here is a blurb from the "Development of Generation 2.0" technology initiative page:
I get the feeling OLPC is a bunch of well-intentioned, high-level talking heads.
Re:Be Warned (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying academics don't produce anything worthwhile, but there's a reason they're in the thinking business, and not in the computer hardware production business.
Good example -- OLPC has the worst keyboard in history (although it did make me long for the days of my Timex/Sinclair). I can see the academics thinking "oh those dirty, ignorant, third-world children need a keyboard that can never break," ignoring the fact that a clamshell device, even in the third world, will keep the keyboard pretty clean, that you can find off the shelf keyboards cheaper, and that even poor people in the third world can understand that they need to not rub dirty into a computer keyboard, since they may be poor, but you know, poor != stupid.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Good thing about the OLPC keyboard -- it has the control key in the right place. Also, while you mock the dirt issue, isn't it also intended to be water resistant and also deal with dirt in the air (i.e. less clean overall surroundings), not just actually rubbing dirt in it.
Isn't the screen on the OLPC fairly revolutionary? I know I should read up on it some more, but I think it's basically "use color at some specific resolution, or B&W at a higher resolution with significant power savings".
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I don't really see a problem with the XO-2 techspec, I mean thats the goal for the future, its not the device that should be out next month and the XO-1 already comes quite close to those goals anyway.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
I get the feeling OLPC is a bunch of well-intentioned, high-level talking heads.
Of course it is; Nicholas Negroponte is at the helm. He's a man who has never let concerns of pragmatism color his ideas.
The XO-1 project had some really brilliant people working on it, but by now it seems they've all left or been forced out. A shame.
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I get the feeling OLPC is a bunch of well-intentioned, high-level talking heads.
Nonsense !
Version 3.0 was supposed to be :
- self-contained in a sub-dermal implant
- powered by the Earth's magnetic field (or optionally, mild arm-waving)
- driven by a wireless brain-link
- able to project HD @ 60Hz through the eyes of the wearer at up to 8 metres in 3D
They are visionaries man, visionaries !
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly right. The problem here is that OLPC has developed type 2 diabetes, so they have to be really careful about their Sugar intake.
Thanks folks, I'll be here all night. Try the fish.
Re:Be Warned (Score:4, Insightful)
The Sugar was problem since day one of the project. Laptop design was very innovative for that time. The idea of cheap educational laptop was brilliant. How this happened, that the hardware was finished quickly, while the software was in deep alfa? They should stick to what was proven "good enough" software solution. By scattering their small resources on building the whole new user interfaces OLPC lost its chance to master the price and marketing.
Re:Be Warned (Score:5, Funny)
Sure, but they changed their name twice for each time they changed their goals, so it all worked out.
What OLPC really needs is a name change, preferably to some sort of nonsensical word. That always seems to turn companies around.
Re:Be Warned (Score:5, Insightful)
Now they make money from the ads on Slashdot and related sites, and sell SourceForge Enterprise Edition software to big companies.
I think SourceForge, Inc. (previously VA Linux Systems, nee VA Research) has actually sold [wikipedia.org] the rights to the software (which software, in a funny example of "do as I say, not as I do", they had switched to a proprietary license). SourceForge, Inc. also runs the sourceforge.net code repository [sourceforge.net]. Given the vocal advocacy on their web properties (like Slashdot or Linux.com), I find it ironic that sourceforge.net uses another proprietary license [sourceforge.net] for their rights to the contents you put there.
Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations, you crushed a competitor and, at the same time, destroyed hope for millions of needy people.
Even if you disagree that third world governments buying these laptops would have done anything, at least it might have gotten them interested in greater investment in education.. it might have gotten them thinking that more of the first world actually gives a shit.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't.
The chance to become producers, not consumers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even though I thought it was a stupid idea, it did have one redeeming point. It would have turned a small segment of the population in those countries into producers instead of keeping them as consumers.
When they decided to support Windows, that killed the only positive point I could see in it. They would be kept as consumers.
Re:The chance to become producers, not consumers. (Score:5, Interesting)
That doesn't make sense. Unless the OLPC hardware and software were being made by the people in the countries buying them, they would be consumers no matter what OS was preinstalled. 99.99% of open source developers are in first world countries, so that wouldn't really tip the balance.
If the OLPC project were really serious about using open source software to help the third world, it would start hiring some of the people there to work on open source projects.
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If the OLPC project were really serious about using open source software to help the third world, it would start hiring some of the people there to work on open source projects.
That's simply absurd.
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That depends on if you think the people who would receive OLPC would all be incapable of modifying the code.
Re:The chance to become producers, not consumers. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm fairly sure that this is exactly why Microsoft wants Windows on the OLPC - outside of making money off of Windows licensing, of course. There is a reason why they sometimes refer to third world nations as "developing countries" (not strictly referring to software/web development) , and Microsoft wants to get in on the ground floor of that development (strictly referring to software/web development).
.NET and Oracle.
Also, you might be surprised at how many contributors to Open Source come from countries with fairly low standards of living. Programming, and the computer culture in general, tends to attract escapist intellectuals, if they don't become Philosophers, Mathematicians, or Artists first. Some of these escapists are running from bullies on the school yard - and some of them are hiding in a basement avoiding gunfire.
Granted, its not the majority, but I wouldn't underestimate people in third world countries if I were you. I've met some people in third world countries (where the average income is roughly 52 dollars a month to ground my statement in real metrics) that are very well versed technologically, even in proprietary technologies such as
Re:The chance to become producers, not consumers. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is the geek way of thinking and it is fundamentally flawed.
The Linux OLPC never sold in the numbers that were predicted - never even approached the numbers that were predicted.
The third world education minister shops for the PC that promises nothing more than a smooth transition for kids who will go on the higher grades or vocational education.
That is the best chance he can give them.
OLPC could have chosen to work with Apple or Microsoft from the start. There is nothing inherently absurd about working with a strong financial partner and one which has close on to thirty years practical experience in the market you are about to enter.
OLPC tied itself to a constructivist philosophy of education that is some light years removed from the realities of a third world classroom ---
and it never missed an opportunity to re-invent the wheel.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
Was a time when I would happily defend Nicholas Negroponte.. that time has passed. His ego and incompetence had a lot to do with the failure of this project.. but that's to be expected.. he's an academic.
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but that's to be expected.. he's an academic.
Wow, you have a massive chip on your shoulder.
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No kidding. Academics started Sun and Cisco, to name just the first two successful tech companies that spring to mind.
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On February 12, 1982 Vinod Khosla, Andy Bechtolsheim, and Scott McNealy, all Stanford graduate students, founded Sun Microsystems.
Len Bosack and Sandy Lerner, a married couple that worked in computer operations staff at Stanford University, later joined by Richard Troiano, founded cisco Systems in 1984.
Neither Graduate students, nor "computer operations staff" are not academics.
Get a clue.
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Yeah, cause it's rude to expect an academic to not understand the realities of business.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:4, Interesting)
Normally I'd complain that you haven't read the grand parent post, I find your reply astounding. You make only reference to his ego and incompetence and then explain that ayaw as him being an academic. You made no mention of business at all. In other words, you have a hugh chip just sitting there...
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, I was obviously assuming that my audience was already aware of how NN fucked up. He assumed Microsoft, Intel and all the politicians wouldn't play dirty. Then he whined about how dirty they were playing. They just ignored him, so he had a little hissy fit, then started making concessions. Game over. All of which could have been avoided if he had shown a little restraint and gotten buy-in from the big players.
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Sorry, I was obviously assuming that my audience was already aware of how NN fucked up. He assumed Microsoft, Intel and all the politicians wouldn't play dirty. Then he whined about how dirty they were playing. They just ignored him, so he had a little hissy fit, then started making concessions. Game over. All of which could have been avoided if he had shown a little restraint and gotten buy-in from the big players.
I agree. But that has nothing to do with him being an academic. Incompetent egomaniacs (still
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:4, Funny)
Being naive about the low down tactics of business and politics has everything to do with him being an academic.
What's your fucking problem?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And taking into consideration his aversion to academics, he's probably dumb as well.
That's what an academic would say.
The problem with academics is that they outrightly disregard any information which wasn't formally codified as an academic work. If something is outside their world, to them it simply doesn't exist.
They're very proud of themselves and absolutely certain that their stand on anything is the most correct. So, yeah, many times you see a fantastic failure because the real world is not an university's lab.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
You're giving Intel and Microsoft way too much credit. It was ASUS that destroyed the OLPC, by creating the netbook market when it released the first Eee PC. ASUS is already on its third generation of the Eee, not to mention the tooth-and-nail competition from Dell and HP, and the OLPC has barely gotten out of the starting gate. The OLPC couldn't possibly compete, even if the world economy hadn't tanked.
I firmly believe you're going to see plenty of sub-$100 Linux laptops being sold in the Third World within the next 3 years, but they're going to be coming from a half-dozen Chinese manufacturers fighting like mad to outsell each other, not the OLPC project. Microsoft and Intel won't be able to do much to stop that trend. The OLPC was a visionary idea, but like so many other visionary ideas it has been swept aside by its successors.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:4, Informative)
No. Laptops that work well in full sunlight and are rugged and low power are not being built by anyone, and won't be. All these requirements require compromises that won't sell well in the first world.. and that's always the target audience. This is why trickle down economics doesn't work.
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Sure they will, but only if it's economical to do so. Those are all desirable qualities in any laptop computer - why would anyone not want them? But buyers choose price over features most of the time.
The problem is this - any manufacturing process that could create an OLPC for $100 could just as easily create a bare-bones Linux laptop without the OLPC's bells and whistles for $50 or less.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming that the target market of this device are a bunch of bushmen who will use is in broad daylight with no access to electricity.
Are *any* current OLPC users (those that the OLPC got deployed to) at all close to that?
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That you for replacing my speculation of irrational fears with more speculation of greater irrational fears. You've done us all a great service.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
The eee pcs use an Intel Atom processor, and most models can be purchased with XP for an operating system. So I doubt either Microsoft or Intel would care to stop the trend.
By the way, they're sweet little machines. I purchased one for our CFO to take with him while he travels (they fit nicely on the little trays on the back of the seats in airplanes) and we were so impressed I bought a couple more to use for training/loaner purposes. (They only come with XP home, so their usefulness is somewhat limited in an Active Directory environment).
I also picked up one for my girlfriend for Christmas, which allowed me to retire an old iBook that's been nothing but trouble. The keyboard is quite usable (you even get a left and right ctrl key!) but it takes some getting used to the position of the right shift key.
I think Asus has hit the nail square on the head with the eee pc. It's no replacement for a full-blown laptop if that's what you need, but if you have a family member who just wants a small, light, esthetically-pleasing computer to surf the web and play a little Solitaire they're perfect.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not so sure about that. I think the OLPC failed for political, not economic reasons. The lobbying efforts of both Microsoft and Intel did have some influence on the outcome, but more and more these days I get the feeling that the biggest reason was sheer ineptitude among the project's organisers.
Let's break these points out a little:
The OLPC pricing model was contingent on economies of scale, and the only parties with enough money to bring to the table were national governments. That logic is sound, as far as it goes. But Negroponte and co. completely ignored just how hard it is to build political will, especially where new, iconoclastic ideas are concerned.
Politicians, especially in developing countries, live from one day to the next. In many cases, their only mandate is to accumulate as much wealth as they can before their government falls, or they fall out of favour. OLPC holds no benefit for them whatsoever.
Those politicians who are competent (and who consider that governing is actually part of the job description) need to have some degree of confidence that what they're proposing isn't going to blow up in their face and leave them looking like fools. As far as I can tell, Negroponte's negotiators relied only on their own stature and authority within the geek world to reassure them. That was - how shall I say? - a little presumptuous.
One example: I have been working in the developing world for a while. In the course of it, I've developed a few very valuable contacts in certain countries in the region where I work. When I was informed that OLPC wanted to roll out in one of them, I was very enthusiastic. This particular country was perfectly suited for such a project: The population isn't too big, the current government is genuinely committed to development, and they've just come into a sizeable chunk of money from newly developed petroleum deposits.
I happened to have contacts at the very core of this particular government. It's not inconceivable that I could have arranged a few very useful conversations. So I wrote to the envoy OLPC had sent, and offered to help.
No reply.
I waited a few weeks more, and tried again. No reply.
After three separate tries, I worked the back channel and was informed by a rather embarrassed individual that the OLPC envoy thought I might cramp his style, so without even checking whether his fears were justified, he cut me cold.
In contrast to this amateurish approach, Microsoft and Intel spend a good deal of time and money building alliances within various governments. They come across as reasonable and fair, often negotiating steeply discounted licensing schemes, and bestowing a good deal of largesse while they're at it.
They're ruthless competitors, that's true, but they don't walk around with blood dripping from their fangs. When you meet with them, they're attentive, caring and sympathetic to your situation. Their job, after all, is to sell more product, and to ensure that nobody else's products look like a reasonable alternative.
Contrast that with some guy appearing from nowhere, expecting to be treated like someone important simply because the letters M-I-T follow their name, and who haven't really a clue about how to effectively navigate the corridors of power. Guess who wins?
Last point: Asus isn't competing with the OLPC. They're building a consumer device and using retail channels to deliver it. They'll sell them in numbers, I don't doubt, but the plain fact is that the devices are not nearly as appropriate for use in rural areas as the OLPC is.
In fairness to OLPC, they're victims as much of being original as anything else. But their strategy is failing because of implementation, not design.
Re:Thanks Intel/Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
I think their holier-than-thou attitude is made particularly obvious from their whole "give-one-get-one" campaign. People who might have been willing to buy an XO for $200 were probably put off by the $400 price tag. If their goal was to increase volume to drive down cost then they should have pursued sales ANYWHERE they could get them. They could even charge a small markup in the first world and use that money towards 3rd-world effots. However, the 100% markup just priced them out of the first world market.
Their attitude seemed to be that we ought to be grateful for the opportunity to donate. My issue with that is that they chose to dicate the amount of contribution. That combined with the attitudes they seemed to come across with made me very hesitant to donate a dime to them.
Well, we see how well that worked out for them. They should have just sold them to anybody who would buy them. Then there would emerge a library of software and buzz that would have helped make the proejct more successful.
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"they're going to be coming from a half-dozen Chinese manufacturers fighting like mad to outsell each other"
I think this hits an important point. We all forgot how important competition is simply because this project embraced OSS, which overwhelmed everyone with excitement.
When you depend on a single company, no matter how well-intentioned and hard-working they are, you are putting too many of your eggs in one basket. The new generation of cheap, small laptops will use OSS too. If the market exists for educ
I know! (Score:5, Funny)
They can save money by switching from Windows to Linux!
They should have started selling it to American (Score:5, Insightful)
schools. Particularly grade schools and middle schools. A laptop that doesn't need maintenance. They launched that initiative 1 year back, but it was too little too late. They were actually quite hostile toward selling it in America or developed world.
Now, I don't believe computers are all that great in the classroom, but if they wanted economies of scale, it would make more sense to sell to the rich, gadget-happy country first to build up production and also legitimacy in the eyes of 3rd worlders. I imagine if MIT pushed it, some Massachusetts area schools might have adopted. Then the OLPC project could have put that on their resume as well.
No one got fired for buying Microsoft/IBM is true, and if the competitor is a relatively unknown, untested entity, doubly so. I think the move to Windows just killed it though, since it didn't differentiate OLPC laptop from any other to the casual observer.
Re:They should have started selling it to American (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, I don't believe computers are all that great in the classroom, but if they wanted economies of scale, it would make more sense to sell to the rich, gadget-happy country first to build up production and also legitimacy in the eyes of 3rd worlders.
That's something that I never understood. Their business plan depended on economies of scale, yet they refused to sell it to people who wanted to buy them, and had the cash.
I understand that they wanted to save the units for the needy, but the needy were never able to afford them because they never got the economy of scale working for them.
Re:They should have started selling it to American (Score:4, Funny)
"No one got fired for buying Microsoft/IBM"
One of the happiest moments of my life was when I was given the opportunity to fire an NT admin, you insensitive clod! :p
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No, they were hostile to changing the design for the developed world (since they are a nonprofit with a specific mission that that would contradict), and they were hostile to selling to any agency other than national ministries of education or something similar, because dealing with smaller lots and smaller entities drives up per-unit costs.
Yes, windos killed it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm certain that the submitter is correct: Allowing windos in killed the project.
Why? Because projects like this rely on the goodwill of volunteers. That comes from ideology, in a neutral sense, i.e. from people believing in something. Very few people believe in windos. It has millions of users, but few "believers". On the other hand, Linux has a very high percentage of believers among its users, it's easy to find volunteers who will contribute for free, or support the distribution channels, convince their local leaders, and so on.
There are things that money can not buy. You can build a religion on money (see Scientology), but not a crusade.
Re: (Score:2)
From what I heard... Microsoft purchased some laptops from the project, and then put Windows on them themselves, just like you or I could... and then distributed those to see how it worked out. In total around 250 machines.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what they told me when I complained, but that's not what this news story indicates:
as Negroponte shifts the agenda away from software freedom and towards Windows.
Also that's not what other reports that I've seen have indicated. Possibly MS is just managing all the news...or possibly OLPC spokesmen are lying to people who complain.
"believers" are part of the problem! (Score:2, Troll)
Spare me the (often incompetent) enthusiasm of youth.
You shouldn't 'believe' in an OS or license like a God. Nobody should.
I believe Windows based computers make up a large market of potential customers.
I believe knowing and using multiple operating systems is a valuable thing. I believe you can't be master of all things. Find a balance.
In the end computers are just tools.
Do you 'believe' in SnapOn, Mac or Matco?
I believe in Haas! Death to Jet tools.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Spare me the (often incompetent) enthusiasm of youth.
You shouldn't 'believe' in an OS or license like a God. Nobody should.
I'm probably older than you are, and my opinion is the exact opposite: You should believe in an OS or license or other things that can make a real difference to human life. There's a lot of reasons to be enthusiastic about things that have the potential to move humanity forward. On the other hand, believing in a god, any god, is just plain silly.
In the end computers are just tools.
In the end, emotions and beliefs are what make us human and different from machines.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Was it the price... no. Was it the specs... no.
I disagree, a XO-1 used to cost almost half of what a Eee sold for, it also has plenty of unique features (rotatable screen, sunlight readability, etc.). The OLPC doesn't completly blow the competition out of the water, but it still has plenty of features that no one else has. Now of course the whole uniqueness of the OLPC never really mattered since the OLPC never entered the marketplace in the first place. G1G1 never was competitive in terms of price and was time limited (fixed now) and never made it to E
Crossing over to the dark side... (Score:2)
...never really turns out well in the end.
Nicholas Negroponte (Score:5, Insightful)
The OLPC is a noble idea, but I think Negroponte has underestimed the the will of its competitors to ensure OLPC doesn't take hold to give them a clear advantage.
When Intel "stole" the contract for the government of Venezuela, Negroponte was outraged, but what his missing is, its just business.
I congratulate Negroponte for his incredible effort to have a vision to give the poor the tools needed to escape dispair and to build a device, but in the end, if Intel can do it, and do it better - than it really doesn't matter.
I'd like to see the poor using free software, but in the end i'd prefer them to have food in their bellies and using commercial software than having free software and going hungry with a bankrupt OLPC.
Its a shame, because I personally love the look of the OLPC, the Classmate looks terrible purely from an aesthetic perspective.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to see the poor using free software, but in the end i'd prefer them to have food in their bellies
Feeding a man for a day, vs teaching him how to fish... as they saying goes.
Re: (Score:2)
But teaching him how to fish and giving him a little bread to go with the first few fish probably works even better.
Not that I'm sure how that analogy applies to the real world...
Competitors (Score:5, Interesting)
The OLPC is a noble idea, but I think Negroponte has underestimed the the will of its competitors to ensure OLPC doesn't take hold to give them a clear advantage.
Actually, very few people seem to even understand Negroponte's real idea. The OLPC had no competitors. It was an education project, not a product. It was never about selling a novel hardware device; that was just a means to an end. Unfortunately, there had never been a similar project to set a precedent, so the press and analysts could only view it in terms that they understood: the terms of the U.S. consumer technology industry. As such, it looked as if the OLPC would have to "compete" with cheapie laptops from Intel, Asus, or whomever, despite the fact that none of these later offerings really had the same goals as the OLPC. I think far more damning to the OLPC was the fact that when it shipped it couldn't actually deliver on the project's goals. When you're asking a government to spend a few million dollars on mass orders of a piece of technology, "someday this will set you free" doesn't sound half as good as "turn it on and it runs Windows."
I have an XO (Score:4, Insightful)
The annoying thing is that it was pretty difficult to get one. I was only able to get one if I bought another for someone else, I don;t mind, but really - if you want to drive volume...
And even then I was only able to get one for a limited special offer period.
I can't help but think that so many things would have been different if they had spent an extra $2 on a faster ARM processor and sold them more openly. More XOs in more hands would have yielded more involvement.
In other news ... (Score:5, Interesting)
A 200$ netbook [zdnet.com] is coming soon and it will run Ubuntu.
And yeah, 200$ not 400$ via "buy two donate one".
Re: (Score:2)
Ok. I can understand if you just concerned with price. But the OLPC wasn't designed to just "be cheap" it was designed to be hardy. Most cheap computers aren't exactly hardy, and not really a comparison to the (idea of) the OLPC.
That's kind of like comparing a $400 notebook to a hardbook that the military might use.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
i hate to say it, but it makes me wonder if Negroponte had windows in mind all along.
"Downsizes Half of its Staff"? (Score:4, Funny)
Value of a Laptop for there demographic (Score:3, Interesting)
From spending time with teachers in early primary ed, non-computer alternatives such as the Leap Pad is specifically designed to teach children to read or do math and are very easy to "plug" into the state cirriculm. When students do go to the computer lab, they either need to buy specialized software, which is expensive to teach them the cirriculm, or just have the kids goof off in MS paint or playing web-games (which is not entirely bad, but less important and effective than other teaching methods). When you can't read and can't do subtraction, being able to draw pictures on a computer is very low on the list of priorities. Because of this, it makes me think the OLPC product out of the box isn't going to be sufficent for real learning, in particular where web access is non-existent or slow/hap-hazard or not in the native language; particularly for young children whom the project seems to be aimed at.
I think the project would have done much more good by producting computers with a standard Linux desktop, OO.org, Firefox, etc... (maybe toned-down versions to run on less RAM/HD space) and marketed them to middle-and-high school age students, particularly those academic performance would make them able to potentially go to university or have a "office job". When I see employees and students (when I am teaching) who can barely use OO.org because they "learned on Word" or can't find their files "on a PC because I have a Mac", it leads me to believe having the Sugar UI, as neat as it is, makes it so different from a computer they'll use in higher-ed or in the workplace that what they are learning isn't going to be nearly as effective. If Windows is the only way to turn an OLPC into a "normal" computer then it seems worth it, even though I'd rather see it loaded with OSS to save the schools money and give them exposure to Linux which is becoming a very popular desktop OS in the developing world in particular. I know some will say "keep it Sugar and let them dump Linux on it", but can you imagine what it would take to re-configure thousands of these machines, let alone creating an install that meets its hardware available? It would be cheaper to buy the machines preloaded with Windows versus all that effort, particularly if MS is practically giving it away. Sometimes ideology is only worth so much when you're strapped to make it happen.
$100 for a machine that is a glorified chat client when the participants are in the same room or an electronic coloring book seems very wasteful when you think of how many crayons, texts, papers and pens that machine is worth to the poorest of poor students. $100 for a real computer to teach college bound students how to be successful and familar with the workplaces requirements, seems like a deal, so long as it is implemented wisely and at a time in the students development where it is going to be worth it. It feels like giving an OLPC to a kid before 4th grade is like giving a violin to a baby.
Predictable (Score:2)
What about books and roofs and pencils first? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What about books and roofs and pencils first? (Score:5, Informative)
Because, for one reason, a $100 (or even $175) machine designed to work as an e-book reader, backed by a project that was also developing free educational content, and which also was supplying low-cost satellite downlink stations supported by donated satellite time to provide internet access to remote locations, provides a less expensive way to distribute the same kind of material that would otherwise be distributed in the form of books in remote areas that often don't have decent road systems. You can replace a lot of books with one e-book reader with even occasional net access for delivery.
Books aren't cheap, even when you are just dealing with the printing costs.
HALPC? (Score:2)
So the org will now be renamed to Half A Laptop Per Child? Sort of a King Solomon approach, eh?
Oh, how easy it is to find fault (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't believe the number of posts here from people claiming how "obvious" it was that the OLPC would never work, and if Negroponte would just fix this or that aspect of the development strategy, the hardware, the software, the pricing, or the partner program, then everything would turn up roses.
There was nothing obvious about the adventures of the OLPC. They were defining an entirely new class of machine that, even now, has no true competitor (and no, none of the current netbook offerings have it right yet: they cost too much, they draw too much power, they can't be used in full daylight, and they aren't nearly rugged enough.)
When you are charting something this new, it attracts the best and brightest. These kind of people have huge egos, that's part of the package. So the fact that there have been lots of sparks flying is no surprise.
When you are trying to change the status quo this completely, it attracts intense opposition from the entrenched competition. I doubt any of us would enjoy putting up with the hammering, back-stabbing, broken promises and endless fight for oxygen that is probably a daily experience for the OLPC executives.
So, I say, cut these people some slack. Go buy a OLPC, and see what all the talk is about. I've been using an OLPC for a year now, and am daily impressed with how very different it is from any other device out there.
When you find yourself reading an ebook, and pass from the deep gloom of a subway station into the direct sunlight without even thinking about the fact that a normal PC can't do that, then you're graduated to the new OLPC world.
When you find yourself grabbing your XO without a case, walking in the rain to your car and throwing it on the back seat without a second thought, then you've graduated to the new OLPC world.
When you find yourself propping your XO up on a bowl in the kitchen so you can browse recipies on the web while you cook, and don't worry for a second about what might happen if you spill something all over it (been there, done that), then you've graduated.
This thing is really different. Give it a chance.
Microsoft and Intel won... (Score:3)
Where to go from here? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Eh why the do you suggest we pay $304 when the get one give one offer was $200?
Re:Figures. (Score:5, Interesting)
Its just a bad time overall.
I think their business plan was fundamentally flawed, and deciding to go with Windows (meaning extra cost) when they were having trouble getting down to the price point they wanted even without it was just the final nail in the coffin.
They, like many other companies these days, are using the poor economy as a convenient excuse for dumping salary, but they were likely doomed anyway.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
and ofcourse it helped alot to have Intel chasing behind OLPC with promises of a far far better laptop without actually doing it. FYI, the Classmate is not even a close comparison to the XO.
It also was a big help when Microsoft went around to the governments of many of the countries the OLPC had publicly listed as giving MoU's and was kind enough to find millions of dollars to invest in these governments to 'help them' with their computer technologies. You know, like how Egypt signed on with Microsoft for a
Re: (Score:2)
nosense, the netbook market exists because of this machine.
till this appeared laptops were huge expensive pieces of hardware. now look at the market.
Re: (Score:2)
I think it more likely that shrinking component sizes and costs made such small and light notebooks inevitable.
There's always a market for well-made smaller/faster/lighter gizmos. The most impressive thing about the original OLPC announcements was the price point they promised, and they weren't able to deliver on that. But come on. Smaller lighter laptops was bound to happen at some point. And I'll go further to make this bold prediction: even smaller and even lighter and even cheaper computers will be
Re: (Score:2)
there was a market for smaller devices. the ultra small laptops though were very expensive. sony toshiba and a few others and never made in great numbers.
asus saw the demand/interest when ever the olpc was discussed and made the eeepc. last christmas in ireland it was more popular than the wii and much harder to get. even now getting our hands on asus eeepcs or acer aspire ones is hard as they go out of stock as soon as they come in. we usually sell 1-2 laptops to customers over christmas for personal
How hard was *that* prediction... (Score:5, Insightful)
They only wanted to sell the fine things to people who couldn't afford them. The people who could? They could buy one, if they paid for two...
The correct way to handle it would be to charge $250 domestically and put them next to the game consoles in Wal*Mart, so lower middle-class parents can buy them for their kids. 1/5 of 10 million sales would pay for a hell of a lot more "donated" models than half of a hundred fifty thousand models.
Besides, the whole "it's good for you, but we're not letting our own kids near 'em" is pretty hard to swallow and smacks of colonialism.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, I think we all owe the a debt of gratitude for showing others that there was and still is demand for a small, cheep, low power laptop.
Re:How hard was *that* prediction... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think that'll work. You're setting up a system where more unscrupulous individuals could make a mint. If there's a big demand for a $250 laptop in richer countries, someone is bound to try to capitalize on the difference in price. What will happen is that those free or near-free machines going to third world kids will be stolen or 'lost'. They'll wind up on the grey market for $200 or thereabouts.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What keeps them from winding up on the grey market with the current system?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I predicted this failure when they started the idea.
A lot of people predicted this failure. Including OLPC's competitors.
Re: (Score:2)
Even if they had a good business model, the safer bet is to bet on the failure of the business. Don't hurt yourself patting yourself on the back - it's not worth the effort.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It made a slow machine even slower and it certainly doesn't encourage practical computer skills.
The slow part is very true. If you launch a good old X11 app via Terminal they will start pretty much instantly, while even a hello-world Sugar app will take near to 10 seconds to start. However I don't buy the 'computer skill' part, Sugar really is not that different, in fact I see most of it to be pretty much the same, the Journal is analog to your average desktop search, an Activity is pretty much just an application, you have copy&paste and plenty of other stuff usual stuff. Having windows launched
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There are several documented ways to run Linux apps in Sugar.
There are ways to run Linux applications by *bypassing* Sugar, there currently are no ways to run them properly from within Sugar itself or to interact with them properly, since Sugar doesn't support a classic file system. Sugar is a desktop environment that does everything it can to make it hard to run normal applications.
Its good to hear that they are trying to fix that now, but its again a case of "to little, to late", this is something that should have been thought of right from the start. The whole goa