OLPC gets in a strop about Big Computer

I lost interest in these devices when they announced they were ditching Linux for the Beast of Redmond.

Rather than having a slimline free and open OS that the intended recpients of these machines can tinker with, it's bogged down with bloated crapware from volesoft. No wonder they could never get the cost down to $100. Fair play to Asus, Acer, MSI etc if they can make cheap small machines.

Rob

Rob, doesn't the OLPC run a modified version of Fedora?

Anyway, I guess I can see where the guy's coming from, but the Big Manufacturers really stole the OLPC's thunder on purpose... if we should blame anyone, we should blame Intel for daring to produce the Atom and then telling OEMs they could only put it in wee subnotebooky things. Still, all's well that ends well, and I'll call an open source OLPC a good ending.

err, *I don't think* the Big Manufacturers stole the OLPC's thunder on purpose.

Shame it's not the morning or I could blame this on the time.

I'm confused, was Negroponte's visions getting cheap laptops to the masses or was it him being the savior that delivered cheap laptop to the massses? Is he upset that "evil" companies are able to deliver a laptop at similar prices, or that they are able to do it much more easily (and make money) then his little kiddie project which is having a hard time competing even without those pesky profits getting in the way. If his goal truly is to get laptops to the masses (which it theoretically is) - why not embrace the competition as it is driving multiple, COMMERCIALLY VIABLE (unlike his 'company'/project) sources. EGOponte has a history of this, he got himself into a hissy fit when Intel refused to agree to a non-compete clause that OLPC demanded. It appears as though his vision was his own monopoly on this market to feed his ego and be the person who changed the world. Now he is a bitter man who doesn't have the sense to see that others are far better equipped to carry out his vision, do it in a shorter amount of time, and (gasp) maybe even turn a small profit from it. I'm ashamed to have graduated from the same university as this ego maniacal jackass - instead of being happy that things are far closer to his original goal, he is upset that it is happening because others are far better at the execution of it them him.

Soon everyone will have a laptop in the glovebox of their car. I hope that car makers are already getting ready an ISO type standard for connecting these new laptops/future devices. Chuck in some broadband, gps, webcam, news, tv, and we have an excellent device that will be included in most cars. You can put all your music on it, get your work sent to it, voice command it all, gps with traffic and proper places of interest, google, yellow pages etc. Also have it able to connect to the home/work wireless network when in range so it can synch/backup/print etc.

If someone can make this for under 1,000 USD/Euros then car makers will probably snap it up as a 3k option to start with, then having as a 1,500 option in the whole range.

This is a device using existing tech, which people are already familiar with, but not all in the one device. What do you think?

Everyone was like "ooh, cheap tiny laptop, I want one!" and they were like "NO! This is only for teh poor childrenz!" Eventually they did some stupid "buy two and we'll give you one" scheme for people who actually wanted one... but and it was more like $400 not $200 for two of them.

So, here's this demand in the first world for tiny cheap laptops, and OLPC refuses to satisfy it. And they're surprised when every OEM and their dog steps in to fill the gap? Sounds like someone needs to go back to economics class. Now instead of paying $400 to get a $100 laptop you can pay $400 and get a semi-decent small laptop. Which also happens to be able to run XP so maybe there are some apps you give a damn about available for the thing.

"Nicholas Negroponte pointed out that, three years ago, nobody was interested in building a small cheap simple laptop which would help out kids in poorer countries." Well he's right, nobody was interested, and for that matter, isn't still. There's really nothing to be gained by companies by selling esoteric computer hardware into regions of the world which would benefit more from sanitation technology than exclusive OLPC "schools" that benefit so few. In the end we all benefitted from the "idea." He should be happy that with all this research, commercial or not, the price of such devices is well below what they would've been for some esoteric device his lot envisioned. Instead of whining about "stolen ideas" he should be working with these companies, countries, and relief organizations to mass-produce these OLPC laptops with even greater efficiency and features--not bemoan the fact that he didn't get "exclusive rights" to make them.

On top of the basic needs that probably need to be addressed to the people Negroponte wants to give laptops to; in an earlier interview it was clear he had no clue what to do beyond providing the laptops. When asked who would train folks... he answered 'we'll just make it simple so the teachers can train themselves'; when asked who would fix any HW issue...his response was something to the effect of making it so robust there wouldn't be many issues. It is clear the guy has an idea and a potentially good one, he just lacks any grounding in reality to understand the manufacturing and support required to make this a useful exercise or that some basic needs (health, sanitation, food?) that probably need to be met before gov'ts start using money in order to hand out laptops. The more this guy opens up his mouth the more he sounds like a person with some 'issues'

We all know it - Information Technology hardware halves in price and/or doubles in performance every 18 months.

The OLPC project was announced in Jan 2005, when low-end laptops were already down below $1,000 and falling.

And then the project did the usual thing of stalling in committees, politics, bickering, and delaying.

They were two years and ten months actually getting to market, in part because the technologies they needed were not available at the prices they needed, and they themselves had to wait for Moore's Law to bring their costs within reach.

Did they really expect to be the only beneficiaries of the normal market process?

And they didn't ever meet their objective of the $100 laptop, making it to about the $200 mark if you count "Give 1 get 1".

This programme might have been a nice way of encouraging charitable giving, but it was also an effective admission that the product was not selling as well as wished in its intended third world markets.

I'd guess that was partly because it was late, partly because it didn't deliver the publicly-planned prices, partly because various proponents wanted a Linux system as their trojan horse for beating MS with (and their political footballing was probably more important to them than the wishes or needs of the users), while most of the intended recipients probably wanted the same MS software that they saw most of the world using...

I'm sure that those who founded this project had the best of intentions; I'm not sure that they ever had the real ability to deliver on their vision.

In the four years since Jan 2005, small laptop prices have fallen, in accordance with Moore's Law, to around the $300 mark while drastically improving their performance, and guess what?

OLPC prefers to bitch about the unfairness of the "commercial competition", rather than recognise that their product has simply been overtaken by the normal economics of the IT market.