Linux.com

The short history of OLPC XO laptop:

Nick & Co. started out saying "We are highly educated people and we have thought about the needs of the people of the third-world, and we have decided that this laptop, with a slower CPU, less RAM, smaller screen, and fewer available programs than any other commercial laptop currently available is sufficient for the average user in most third-world countries. Since the demand will be so great, we are limiting sales to countries that order in lots of 1 million or more, and we are only offering them to third-world countries."

And when the orders didn't pour in, to address the concerns of all their potential customers, they lowered the minimum number of units per order to 100,000. Then lower still.

And when that didn't make the XO a success, they started to blame competiton - "Why are these mean organiations trying to take away our market? All we want to do is sell millions of laptops in vast, undeveloped markets and exclude their technology/products from these future markets?"

In a final gesture, they decided to finally offer their vastly superior product to lucky "first-worlders", but at a significant premium - double the price of third-world customers, but with the promise that for each laptop sold in the first-world, a second laptop would be given to a lucky third-world citizen. When the orders finally did pour in, it turned out that the OLPC folks couldn't handle single-unit sales, they lost customer orders, shipped defective machines, and offered almost no end-user support or documentation (who needs manuals, it is all so intuitative!). So, having burned the very techno-zealots that were their biggest supporters, OLPC decided to make a more appealing device (the upcoming OLPC that resembles an electronic book reader), are adding in support for a version of Windows XP (at $3/device, a *much* lower price point than the "free" Sugar interface and GNU/Linux OS solution they worked on for years at a cost of millions of dollars), and are considering Intel CPUs (the current performance per watt leader in CPUs)...

So there you have it. In my opinion, the greatest sins the OLPC group commited was that they thought the purity of their intentions would squelch their competitors, silence their detractors, and that third world countries would squander precious "hard currencies" to buy laptops for citizens without electricity, running water, stable food supplies, and basic health care.

I wonder if the OLPC folks ever considered offering to build the laptops in the third-world countries, giving those countries an entre into the computer age? How about working with an aid organization to underwrite the laptops ($200 is a lot of money in many parts of the world)? Finally, I wonder why the OLPC group didn't go around a solicit requirements from the intended users, rather than sit around the MIT Media Lab in their bean bag chairs and decide what third-world users needed in a computer? If I remember correctly, the design of the OLPC was defined by Nick at Davos, and he has continually compromised his vision over the years to try and gain traction - and he has yet to sell his first million units.

OLPC deserves to succed in the market only if they offer the best over all solution to an actual problem their customers have - intentions, aspirations, and design innovations aside.

#