Monday, November 26, 2007

Negroponte Experiences Competition on OLPC

The Wall Street Journal had an article this weekend, A Little Laptop With Big Ambitions about the One Laptop Per Child project of Nicholas Negroponte (aka the $100 laptop and the XO). It now costs $188 (+shipping) and is facing competition from the Intel Classmate ($300) with a $3 copy of Windows. Shocker that poor countries would be interested in getting name brand machines.

Of course it leaves out that the XO was designed specifically to work in poor environments. No reliable electricity? Use the hand crank. Want to learn how computers work? Dive into the Open Source code (it's Linux-based) and there's a View Source key on the keyboard. Not a computer administrator? It automatically forms networks with nearby machines. Scared about security problems rampant in Windows? Since there's no backwards compatibility OLPC has a new security model that seems much more secure (time will tell).

Competition should make products better. Based on the article, Negroponte's not so good at this. The product is double the promised price. He "demanded that Intel stop selling the Classmate" as if that's likely to happen. He won't participate in pilot programs that include the Classmate, calling them "bake-offs". He also seems to be violating a "nondisparagement" clause in an agreement with Intel when their CEO joined the OLPC board. And the end of the article is clearly not the way to sell your product:

"Mr. Negroponte said some initial tech support would be provided by Brightstar Corp., a Miami-based wireless equipment distributor. Just who would provide support a few years from now, he said, was 'a frightening question.' The students, he said, will need 'to do as much maintenance as possible.'"

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