There's a running battle going on between Nicholas Negroponte's project to bring cheap laptops to poor countries and commercial competitors. His non-profit organisation, known as One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), claims its XO machines are better, but are undermined by competition from the likes of the Intel Classmate and Asus Eee PC, cheap devices aimed at similar markets. Many in the media agree that such competition is unfair.
Witness even the Wall Street Journal, which last year wrote an article titled "A Little Laptop With Big Ambitions" with the subheadline: "How a computer for the poor got stomped by tech giants". Then there's a column in ITWeb Brainstorm's February edition, in which Paul Furber writes: "Many people think cheap laptops in third-world countries are a great idea because Intel has spent millions in marketing, redefining what people think the mission and vision of the OLPC project really is."
Of course, the OLPC project has also retained a public relations firm, in the form of the Racepoint Group, which was briefed in 2006 to "help shape global opinion". Perhaps this campaign met with some success too. If the mere act of marketing taints Intel, it tars the OLPC with the same brush.
So we're all square, so far.
Problem is, some countries aren't buying that the OLPC's XO laptop really is better, so Intel is "dumping" its "Crapmate PC" (to quote Furber) in order to put the OLPC out of business.
The XO may well be able to do some things the competitors can't, although a totally redesigned - and cheaper - version has been announced for 2010. Still, 1.7 million of them were sold to Uruguay and Peru. Other potential customers, however, didn't agree or didn't care. The Nigerian government opted for a million Intel machines because, its advisors said, the XO laptop never met the $100 target price, which made it vulnerable to competition, and besides, Intel's support is better than that of the OLPC. The Wall Street Journal likewise quotes a Libyan technical consultant on the matter: "The Intel machine is a lot better than the OLPC. I don't want my country to be a junkyard for these machines."
So who's dumping now? Thirty all.
If it really were about education, what's wrong with the extensive educational software available for other systems?
Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist and columnist.
Problem is, some countries don't understand that it is about education. "My goal is not selling laptops," Negroponte is quoted as saying. "OLPC is not in the laptop business. It's in the education business."
Yet he demanded of Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, that it stop selling the Classmate, because the XO couldn't compete and Intel was "driving his non-profit out of business". This is a telling phrase. A lengthy tirade written by a disillusioned former executive of the OLPC project, Ivan Krstic, confirms what this phrase suggests: "I quit when Nicholas told me - and not just me - that learning was never part of the mission. The mission was, in his mind, always getting as many laptops as possible out there."
Besides, if it really were about education, what's wrong with the extensive educational software available for other systems? Or why not just port the same interface and open, hackable software to other devices, as Walter Bender, the former head of OLPC software and content who fell out with Negroponte, is doing for the Intel Classmate? Why did the project neglect to involve education-sector customers, causing some to say it doesn't fit their pedagogical programmes, and others to complain that the software has become too complex for children to use?
That makes it level again. Deuce.
I wrote last year, when the bickering began, that after years of uphill work trying to sell his vision, Negroponte would gain a lot more respect if he now declared victory: "See? I told you it could be done!" In a recent podcast interview with ZA Tech Show, Mark Shuttleworth concurs, saying Negroponte is not given enough credit for showing that a cheap laptop is feasible and creating an entirely new market where none existed before.
But Negroponte doesn't want that credit. It's not about the halo, or the laptops, or education, or the poor kids. It's about who gets to sell them. He claims monopoly rights on grounds with which his customers do not agree. Considering that the income from his non-profit pays only project employees, instead of shareholders, one might think that he could at least compete on price. But he can't even do that.
OLPC has served a noble and useful purpose, by proving that cheap laptops can be built and that there is demand in the developing world. It has explored the requirements and potential pitfalls of delivering educational machines to the poor. A market gap has been filled, and Negroponte deserves full credit as the pioneer. I'd have said game, set and match to him.
Pity Negroponte disagrees. Instead, he feeds sour grapes to the media, because he knows they'll lap up the story of how his stupid customers had the gall to trample right over a non-profit saint on their way to better commercial competitors.
* Ivo Vegter is a freelance journalist and columnist, who blogs at http://ivo.co.za/. He uses an Asus Eee PC, because the OLPC XO isn't available in South Africa.
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