Dramatically Scaled-Back OLPC Begins Production
from the soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations dept
The One-Laptop-per-Child project, which the press is still referring to as the "$100 laptop" despite the fact that it now costs twice that, finally began rolling off the assembly line this week. What's most striking about the effort is how dramatically Nicholas Negroponte has had to scale back his formerly lofty ambitions to get the project off the ground. He initially said that they'd need 3 million orders before they started production. Those orders never materialized, so now they're starting production with only one order, from Uruguay, for just 100,000 laptops. And frankly, if I were Negroponte, I wouldn't count on that order until the money was in the bank, as countries have backed out of commitments in the past. And they've already reversed their previously strong stance against allowing Westerners to buy laptops for their own use. Negroponte has also changed his tune on his relationship with Microsoft. A year ago he crowed that "if I am annoying Microsoft and Intel then I figure I am doing something right." He also opined that "About 25 percent of the cost of a (Windows) laptop is there just to support XP, which is like a person that has gotten so fat that they use most of their muscle to move their fat." Now, however, he's touting his Microsoft ties, stating that "Microsoft has always been working on Windows for the XO. We put the SD (secure digital) slot into our laptop over one year ago, for them." He didn't elaborate on whether the SD slot was needed because of XP's feature bloat. The OLPC project may yet help a lot of poor children, but so far its record has been pretty underwhelming.
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Filed Under: olpc
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What's funny is that the $180 price quote was in the story.
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For as big a waste of money OLPC is...
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I'm shocked
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Helping our children of poverty
I also agree that orders better be backed up with some real money instead of just a promise to purchase from some of these countries. So much corruption in so many third world countries makes this an even greater challenge.
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I'm getting bored with the number of Masnick stories that whinge about new stuff that might disrupt his view of the world.
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Re:
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Re: I'm shocked
Imagine that.
A whole generation of children growing up not knowing about windows viruses, trojans, and solitaire.
It would most likely destroy Windoez' future consumer base completely.
Naturally they did the only thing they could think of to save their future asses.
The only question is what was it?
Bribes?
Blackmail?
Sabotage?
Oh what this could have been...
:tear:
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Well, that certainly explains a lot.
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Re:
If they didn't do what they said they were going to do then in my mind they failed. Techdirt is an analysis site and part of analysis often includes identifying failures.
If that's the way you see it then maybe you'll go away.
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It's not just the numbers either
There is no hand crank. There is not human-powered anything on it. Look at the specs here: http://laptop.org/laptop/hardware/specs.shtml It's just not the machine they originally claimed they were making. In an industry where hardware gets cheaper all the time, they're late, they're under-spec, and they're over price. That is purest failure.
And that is also a great blessing. The fewer 'sold' to third-worlders by selling to their governments and ending around actual individual demand. The fewer machines poor people are forced to pay for without their consent the better.
Still, the worst part is the collective BJ people want to give Negroponte over this giant cluster mess. A total failure and reversal on goals, but no loss of stature amongst the non-thinking fans of his non-thinking all-feeling ideals.
I hope the ones they do sell can at least be used as a light bulb, because they certainly can't filter water.
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Re: It's not just the numbers either
Now that Negroponte has revealed that they've been working with M$ all along (even making special design modifications for M$) I'm starting to think that their current OS is really just a placeholder until Windows is ready at which point they'll jump on the Windows bandwagon with both feet. Of course they'll claim it's because that is what the governments they're selling the things to want (without revealing all the M$ bribes that went to the officials of said governments). Never mind what the people themselves want, they're not the ones signing the checks. This whole thing is starting to smell like some scheme to make sure M$ eventually owns the market in those countries. Every pusher knows it's best to hook 'em while they're young.
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not bad but...
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