It seems churlish to question the success using commercial criteria of One Laptop Per Child, when as a non-profit organisation it has done much to raise awareness of the possibilities and need for cheap computing power.
Getting the XO laptop into production and use around the world was an achievement in itself, but government orders so far have been underwhelming. Only South America has responded in significant numbers, with 100,000+ orders coming from each of Colombia, Uruguay and Peru.
Ironically, it is sales to consumers in the developed world – never part of the original plan – that is pushing the use of the OLPC in Africa and troublespots such as Haiti and Afghanistan.
The Give One Get One campaign announced last year has led to around 100,000 laptops being sent to such countries by US consumers. They were able to pay $399 for an XO for themselves and the right to donate one to a deserving child.
Now the scheme is being extended to consumers worldwide , with the announcement today that orders will be taken by Amazon’s UK site for sales and delivery worldwide, although it does not expect to have inventory until January.
OLPC came out with plans for version two of the laptop in May, which will be more like a digital book, with two touch-sensitive screens.
Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of OLPC, tells me this should cost $75, while, at the same time, he admits that the original “$100″ XO laptop still costs $187. The key is integration, he says, reducing 900 parts to 50-60 components.
But in a tacit admission of the uphill battle OLPC is facing, he says the launch date of two years hence is intended to encourage others to beat the non-profit to market.
“As a non-profit we want people to copy this, the more the better, we would love to see the competition beat us,” he says.
He is looking at the success of the small, cheap netbook category of course, but he says such commercial efforts at supplying cheap computing versus OLPC are like comparing McDonalds to the World Food Programme.
In other words, there is no competition – different markets, different targets, which begs the question of how much any commercial solution can contribute to OLPC’s laudable aims.
