One Laptop Per Child News on Sales Talk

Rethinking the OLPC Distribution: A "Bottom of the Pyramid" approach?

Posted on May 07, 2008 by Jon Camfield in Implementation: Plan, Sales Talk: Price

What would a "bottom of the pyramid" approach for the OLPC look like? While the OLPC vision is bottom-up and child-focused, their actual deployment has been top-heavy. There's occasional discussion about releasing the One Laptop Per Child XO laptop into the market to achieve a more bottom-up development, and the OLPC's original selling point to its manufacturers was that even though the profit margins would be slim, the market would be the next billion users (WSJ). So why not go all-in and focus on this record of success in the technology creation/diffusion realm, and apply it in the international development context?

Where the OLPC Project has intersected with the market; it has created new and valuable intellectual property (Mary Lou Jepsen, former CTO of OLPC, believes so strongly in the new technology that she's created her own for-profit company licensing the OLPC technology). The buzz around the XO has invigorated the ultra-mobile/small/low-power/low-cost laptop market; with Asus' Eee PC, the new Elonex, Fujitsu's newest LifeBook series, and of course Intel's already-existing ClassMate has received much more attention of recent.

BusinessWeek's Bruce Nussbaum has already compared the OLPC to the Classmate from a BoP approach; but only focused on education and implementation:

But one absolutely critical issue that trumps all the others is education—how best to teach kids at the bottom of the pyramid. So far, the conversation about XO has been dominated by geek stuff, not educational stuff. [...] But where’s the debate over digital lesson plans in local languages, team teaching, long-distance education? [...] Intel may be doing better than the XO. A version of Intel’s Classmate PC is already on sale in Mexico and elsewhere and it is—this is key—bundled with educational material software and teacher support.

An OLPC Entrepreneur?

That's all well and good, but it continues an assumption that I'm trying to open up for debate -- is the educational system the best way to distribute the OLPC XO laptops to create sustained development? What would the the OLPC project turn into if changed to a technology-diffusion, bottom of the pyramid approach with the overall goal of improving communities by closing the "digital divide"?

OLPC through BoP

First off, there are some immediately obvious downsides. The project would not be a one laptop per child; egalitarian, education-focused project anymore, which is a big punch in the gut to the OLPC vision. It wouldn't necessarily be a child-only approach -- children could be encouraged with various incentives, but once you go to the market, turning away customers over 18 won't fly for very long.

However, the current situation is limited pilot projects in mostly urban situations, mostly schools which are on-grid with Internet access available, with Peru leading the way in pushing for remote-rural tests. So a market approach loses something, but might make up for it in spread and long-term impact. A bottom-up approach is still very constructivist; and doesn't necessarily have to lose it's child-centric flavor. If the underlying goal is closing the "digital divide" and helping these countries; what you need is a self-sustaining project, not an infinite series of projects and recurring costs to the government for new laptops.

So what does it take for technology projects to self-sustain; leading to community development? You need to create a technology that individuals in the community will adopt, learn, and expand, and a process to enable this. This is technology diffusion as much as ICT4Dev -- you want to find early adopters who will spearhead technology adoption. If you look at similar technology diffusion projects that have been widely successful, some exciting possibilities come to light.

The mobile phone comparison

The first example that always gets dragged out when talking about technology diffusion in developing world contexts is of course the cell phone. The wildfire-like adoption rates of cellular technology are amazing, even (especially?) in developing countries. The Grameen (Village) Phone project has found a micro-credit solution to bring in even those markets unable to normally afford a phone by extending credit (combined with training on using the phone) to individuals in a community, who then use the phone as a business, charging people to use it to call family or government services in remote cities, find out the market value for their crops, and so on. The profits from this micro-enterprise repay the low-interest loan and improve the quality of life of the entrepreneur.

The OLPC costs a bit more than a cell phone, unfortunately -- but the same microfinance concept has been successful in costlier technology projects. In Nicaragua, a local firm called TecnoSol has partnered with an energy corporation, E+Co, to sell photovoltaics, (PVs, solar power cells) batteries, and training to rural farmers and entrepreneurs through a credit scheme. These PVs can cost up to $3,000 for the more powerful (and larger) cells; but for much of rural Nicaragua, there's simply no grid access, and a PV can mean light, water pumps, and even refrigeration for a farm or a store; which can greatly expand business potential (if you're the only place in walking distance with a cold beer, you will meet with success). So this model can scale up beyond relatively cheap cell phones to more expensive objects. This UMich study (PDF) goes into more detail on the Tecnosol/E+Co partnership.

These projects have many factors contributing to their success, but the underlying key for both is local knowledge -- what local demands are going unmet that could turn enough profit to repay a loan and create a small business? With the Grameen Phone, community members had a variety of different needs that they were willing to pay small fees for, if a phone was available to "rent" time on. In Nicaragua, providing electricity in an area with no access to the power grid has obvious benefits, many of which can be monetized.

The same entrepreneurial idea can feed development, using the OLPC technology instead of (or possibly in addition to) cell phones and PVs. Set up a group of in-country micro-lenders who can walk someone through the usage of the OLPC XO laptops, evaluate requests for laptop loans with local situational and social knowledge, and help with initial setup. Provide micro-loans to individuals with an idea of how to use the laptop in a way that could generate enough revenues for repayment and self-employment. Work with local social customs and systems to find the best way to create social pressure for loan repayment (only x amount of money is available on a rotating basis?), as well as adapt to local markets and needs.

Perhaps some business ideas will also require Internet connectivity -- can this be rolled in as an additional service to the OLPC via a GPRS/EDGE/etc. cell phone connection, a local ISP, or some other solution (satellite uplinks would probably be too expensive unless they're shared with others; perhaps one could get installed and shared among a geographically close group of XO entrepreneurs via the mesh?). Perhaps some plans would also need an energy source to charge the laptop (the yo-yo charger can only do so much) that could be provided or supplemented with solar or wind energy and a UPS battery backup? Maybe a small portable printer (and ink?) is also needed for some ideas -- it all depends on the idea and the local market's need and ability to pay for the services balanced against the cost of the items, marginal costs of ink/paper/cell phone data costs, and how low micro-loan interest rates can be safely set.

Can the OLPC turn a BoP profit?

Keeping the educational focus

The bottom-of-they-pyramid microfinance approach doesn't even have to drop the education focus. While the returns on education are much to slow to repay loans effectively in most cases, grant programs or other implementations could focus on child usage. For example; the XO could be on sale for anyone; but only young entrepreneurs could qualify for the micro-loans, and they'd have to provide some explanation of how this would fit into their learning. Schools or education-oriented civil groups could to buy on credit in bulk, provided they could support both an educational aspect and a profit-making aspect. Grants could be available to even younger children participating in educational programs, skimming profits off of the loan system and successful entrepreneurs in a new G1G1 style program.

Below are a few ideas (presuming some form of Internet, probably cell-phone-network enabled) that could combine the OLPC, community development, and education with making a bit of profit. There are a million other possible things to do with the laptop, using its built in hardware and software tools as well as adding other open-source software to it, so this is by definition an incomplete list. Only local agents can really know what the local demand for OLPC-related services would be, so take these as very basic, generic ideas:

Youth could create radio programs with local advertising -- youth gain experience in writing, public speaking, budgeting, aspects of radio operation (physics lesson on radio waves?), as well as marketing. Local industries could advertise goods during their radio program, and this isn't even getting into the FOPSE (For-profit Social Enterprises) possibilities like the LapDesk.
The OLPC could be used as a traveling/home-visit cybercafe and "digital office" (some tasks might require a portable printer as well) to provide services like:
- Letter/resume transcription and/or typing
- Contact (skype/voip with family abroad?)
- Interaction with eGovernment services
- Access to current market prices for locally produced goods
- Manage an eBay store of artesania / handcrafts
- Remote basic medicine and consultation with urban-based doctors
- Of course, email/chat/web surfing/entertainment and the like if there's a demand for such services
Schools (or other groups) could offer the public training and adult education -- the laptop is built to support education; so it's an ideal machine to support training in basic computer skills (typing, mousing, etc.); literacy and numeracy, and so on.

So, readers -- can this work? Does this "cheapen" the laptop-as-educational-revolution? Does that matter if a more substantial and sustainable development project emerges?

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Buyer's Guide for Give Many XO Laptop Purchases

Posted on March 19, 2008 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: Price

Recently I received an email from an OLPC supporter who runs an elementary school in the developing world. The school leader is trying to buy 200 XO laptops for students in this school and is looking for guidance on the purchase.

Bulk buying XO laptops

The procurement conversations with One Laptop Per Child have been all by email, through the Brighstar distributor which replied that:

Give Many XO pricing would be $299 plus shipping
XO laptops would be shipped in "approximately 3 months"

Before the school sends $60,000 of scare US dollars to OLPC, the headmaster asked me four very pertinent questions:

Do you think that given the current situation with OLPC, will the laptops be actually shipped "approximately 3 months after payment" or should i expect that to be a lot more?
Do you think this program could be a way too big risk at this time?
Have you got any information on a successful or unsuccessful "give many" programs?
In other words... should I be worried?

I was humbled by the request for guidance. Both that I would be asked for it and that my opinion would be valued. I replied with a suggestion I would give anyone spending $60,000 on computer technology:

OLPC is trying very hard to be responsive to orders. Yet for any transaction of this size, I would recommend that you have Term Sheet that specifies exactly what you expect of OLPC and Brightstar.

That means shipping dates, logistics, laptop amounts, the software/hardware you expect with it, any support you expect from OLPC, and a payment plan that gives you leverage if something goes wrong (ie: the last payment is made 30 days after receipt of the laptops). A few emails should not replace a term sheet.

I also strongly suggested that the school conduct a Total Cost of Ownership analysis for the purchase. Hardware is usually only 10-20% of the total cost of any technology installation. It could even be less if they are going to adapt curriculum to integrate the laptops into the country's educational pedagogy.

But maybe my advice wasn't enough. Maybe you might have an idea or suggestion you want to share for this OLPC buyer and anyone else contemplating a Give Many XO laptop purchase. Maybe you'll even be brave enough to tell us about it.

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When the Non-Profit OLPC Should Not be No-Profit At All

Posted on February 15, 2008 by Edward Cherlin in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Price

Non-profits are, in law, permitted to make a profit, though few do. The legal restriction is simply that profits may not be distributed to investors, so a non-profit doesn't have shareholders. Why might a non-profit want to profit?

Well, of course, most don't. In particular, Nicholas Negroponte is determined not to make a profit on the OLPC XO laptop, which some will see as entirely laudable. I don't, as I will explain.

No Profit Impacts

Now, it's true, OLPC charges governments $1 over cost, and the Give One Get One program charges $199.50 each for two XOs that cost $178 or so at the factory. That's not what industry considers a profit margin, since it doesn't even cover basic expenses like customer support, and that's where my argument begins.

G1G1 customer support is abysmal.

Misaddressed packages due to faulty software design in the fulfillment system. (If you entered Company Name and Street Address on separate lines, the second got dropped, and the shipping company sent it back. The workaround was to abbreviate the company name and squeeze both into one line.)
Customers whose XOs came back were not notified.
No responses to e-mails.
Spending 45 minutes on hold to talk to a person.
Taking more than a month to figure out how to ship to Canada.

All of this is done in the name of sending everything possible to poor schoolchildren, as the name Give One Get One makes abundantly clear. Certainly it is an important measure of conventional non-profit performance to look at how much money goes to the people to be helped, and how much goes to office expense, salaries, raising more money, etc.

But OLPC isn't a conventional non-profit, and shouldn't think of itself that way, IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion).

Where to Spend Profits

Now I'm not suggesting that OLPC simply go corporate. One of the reasons why the XO is less expensive than the alternatives is that OLPC is a non-profit, and many of the people there, including Nicholas Negroponte himself, work as volunteers. As do I (although I have applied for a paid position).

I am suggesting that OLPC talk to some people at MIT's Sloan School of Management (not just to other geeks) about a financial framework that would pay for necessary expenses such as documentation and customer support. Or maybe to Presidio School of Management, which offers a Sustainable MBA. Whomever.

It is true that a requirement for documentation can be seen as a design failure, as discussed in The Design of Everyday Things, by Donald Norman. It is true that a major goal of XO design is to make things as discoverable as possible. Mostly.

But the XO has non-discoverable features. Easter eggs, even, like an instance of Conway's Game of Life, activated by holding down a button at boot. Inscrutable command-line functions such as yum and xo-get for installing software. Entirely non-obvious features of the Journal, and of a number of activities.

So it is vital that the XO is starting to get incomplete and not totally accurate documentation, such as the Getting Started Guide. And that people are working on many other documents, many listed on my OLPC Publications page on the Wiki. In particular, we need a visual hardware repair manual and a book on discovery on the XO to make the case that children can learn to use and repair XOs themselves.

These are important because you can't just tell people such things. You have to have a convincing demonstration. We also need a book inviting teachers and parents to discover the joys of the discovery process and its effectiveness in real education (not just scoring high on standardized tests).

Make Some Profit

So I'm talking about raising the price of the XO somewhat. I predict that Wayan is not going to be happy with me, because he complains about every bit of cost associated with the laptops. But my argument to Wayan, as it is to OLPC, is that profit is a necessary part of the process.

Moderate profit, not monopoly profit, extracting as much money as possible from a market. Profit means that we won't have to behave like other NGOs, always begging for money.

Profit means that we can fund everything else needed to start the virtuous cycle of getting people out of poverty so that they can invest in themselves and their children and their communities. Profit also for the students and their friends and relations, using what we sell to start new businesses, and even new sectors of their national economies.

Profit means that OLPC, or somebody, can provide the whole world with the technologies needed for clean water, and health care, and in fact all the rest of the UN's Millennium Development goals, and much more besides, and start all of the developing countries that are willing on the path to sustainable (tricky, that, but that's for another day) economic parity.

As long as it is profit on all sides, as in a genuine Free Market, and not profit extracted from the public against its will, as in Laissez-Faire Capitalism, which is currently masquerading as Free Trade. Free for corporations but not for citizens doesn't cut it in reality, and citizens shouldn't stand still for it.

Profit is not Evil

The most fundamental principle of Free Markets, even before the principle of equilibrium of supply and demand, is that in an unforced transaction, both sides gain. I sell you, or trade you, something I don't need in exchange for something I want more, and you do the same on the other side.

You get something that has a greater value for you than for me, at a cost somewhere in between. So we both make a profit, because we each get a value to ourselves greater than the value of what we offer in exchange. This is kindergarten economics, at the level of the classic Lemonade Stand game. (We can talk about how to teach it in kindergarten another time.)

In fact, one of the most important functions of the XO is to bring people into markets that were previously closed to them, to give them the means of production for the information age, to enable them to collaborate, and in so many other ways to trigger a previously unimaginable wave of economic and social development.

I am well aware that some of my readers and some of the armchair analysts cannot imagine this. I am certain that I cannot convince some of them. However, I expect that events soon will speak on this matter far louder than any of our words.

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Um Computador por Aluno Laptop Auction Begins in Brazil!

Posted on December 19, 2007 by Alexandre Van de Sande in Countries: Brazil, Sales Talk: Price

Brazilian classrooms of tomorrow?

Today was the first day of the auction process for the Um Computador por Aluno project (One Computer per Student, in Portuguese). The process was suspended at the end of the day inconclusively and can drag for two more days.

The lowest offer was at 71.2 million dollars which prices every one of the 150,000 laptops at US$475 which was deemed as unacceptable by the house. Over 8 proposals were made from prices ranging from $500 to $1,600 dollars, but the identity of all bidders will be revealed only after the auction is over.

The whole process is being very open, and this was embraced wholeheartedly by the open source community which followed the auction site as if it was a twitter account. All bids and messages from the judges are posted online and can be followed by anyone with an internet access and every half hour updates were posted to multiple OLPC related mailing lists.

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Good Luck to eBay's XO Laptop Resellers

Posted on November 29, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: Price, Countries: USA

Were you thinking of getting rich of One Laptop Per Child's G1G1 sales by selling your XO -1 laptop on eBay like SIGN Foundation and Sunny East Treasures did?

Well I hate to kill your sure-fire money maker, but eBay has pulled all the XO laptop ads. Is eBay, a co-sponsor of OLPC, somehow trying to protect the spirit of Give One Get One by purposely de-listing XO-1 ads?

I've heard the reason the sellers couldn't eBay OLPC is because they violated eBay's Pre-Sale Policy

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When Exactly Does Give One Get One Start?

Posted on November 02, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: Price, Countries: USA

As every geek knows, One Laptop Per Child laptop sales plan "Give One Get One" starts on November 12th. We'll have two weeks to order an XO-1 laptop and be the first kids (at heart) on the block to have an OLPC Christmas.

But we've also heard that G1G1 will sell out fast as we'll be competing with OLPC Uruguay's laptop order for the first machines. In addition, with possible production delays limiting the pre-Christmas run to 100,000 or less, we have this advice from OLPC itself:

[Mary Lou] Jepsen said some laptop customers in the United States and Canada would be able to get their PCs before the holidays, but they would be shipped on a first-come, first-served basis.

"Order early," she said.

Which brings me to a very pertinent question: when exactly does Give 1 Get 1 start?

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Why Give One XO-1 When You Can Donate 1,000 or 10,000?!

Posted on October 22, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: Price, Laptops: XO-1

While American geeks are debating buying an OLPC XO-1 laptop through G1G1 or a Asus Eee PC for $400 through computer retailers this Christmas, those with big hearts and bigger pockets can make the biggest impact with a new change to OLPC's sales strategy.

Gone is the myopic focus on their struggling government-only sales plan. Gone is even the need to go all G1G1 if you have a serious philanthropy purpose. According to Manusheel Gupta, One Laptop Per Child is now willing to work directly with high-net worth individuals, foundation, and presumably even nonprofit organizations - anyone with a $30,000 USD minimum commitment.

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OLPC Peru's Enigmatic 40,000 XO-1 Laptop Purchase

Posted on October 14, 2007 by Eduardo Villanueva Mansilla in Countries: Peru, Sales Talk: Price

Pointing to OLPC Peru

Peru is poised to become the second official buyer of the One Laptop Per Child XO-1 computer, after President Alan García Pérez's announcement on October 11th to buy at least 40,000 XO's from OLPC this year and 250,000 more next year:

Garcia Perez announced the approval of a request for additional credit of 22 million soles to buy the first 40 thousand school computers, smaller than conventional ones, valued between $130 and $150 US dollars each.

Noting that this purchase is part of the process of incorporating technology in schools in the country, he remarked that these modern machines will enable children to learn to investigate, seek information and connect with the world through the computer.

The computers will be used in rural schools, apparently in those already included in the Huascaran program, a not-that-successful attempt by the previous administration to provide computers to schools. In a number of cases, computer labs with satellite Internet connection were set up so servers and network equipment should be available to connect XOs, though the exact details are not being made public just yet.

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Exactly When is OLPC's Give One Get One XO Sale?

Posted on September 26, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: Price, Countries: USA

Looking back at the press reports around One Laptop Per Child's Give 1 Get 1 program for XO laptop sales, I'm a little confused. I know exactly when the program will start:

But when will it end? The ABC News report says:

Every time an American orders a laptop, during a two-week period from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26, a kid in a developing country will get one for free - it's called the Give 1, Get 1 program.

The New York Times reports the same dates for G1G1: November 12 to November 26th. Yet if you read through the XOGiving.org F.A.Q. you have a whole other time period. The two weeks of XO-1 sales are cut to just seven mad days to an XO Black Week:

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OLPC Give 1 Get 1 Program: XO-1 Laptop USA Sales!!!

Posted on September 23, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: G1G1, Sales Talk: Price, Countries: USA

Do you want a XO laptop for Christmas? Clock-stopping hot educational technology for your children, here in America? Then you're gonna love this: as OLPC News predicted, Nichols Negroponte has modified his XO sales plan for One Laptop Per Child as government orders failed to materialize and the XO price rose.

OLPC has just launched OLPC USA: XO-1 laptop sales at $400 per computer in a "Give 1 Get 1" program:

Starting November 12, One Laptop Per Child will be offering a Give 1 Get 1 Program for a brief window of time. For $399, you will be purchasing two XO laptops - one that will be sent to empower a child to learn in a developing nation, and one that will be sent to your child at home.

But you better sign up quick. XO-1 computer orders only be accepted for two weeks, November 12 to November 26, with delivery promised in time for One Laptop Per Christmas Tree.

I don't know about you, but I plan on buying a XO-1 laptop fro every child (and child at heart) on my block!

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My OLPC Sales Plan Prediction for XO Laptops

Posted on September 17, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Countries, Sales Talk: Price, Countries: USA

OLPC USA sales goal

With Nicholas Negroponte's "only government buyers" sales plan unable to generate any real orders yet, the "$100 laptop" price increasing to $205 per laptop, and yet another production delay for Quanta, I say its time for XO laptop retail sales in the USA.

But what would be the best way for One Laptop Per Child to sell its "$100 laptops" to American parents that would also support the OLPC Mission? Mary Lou Jepsen already hinted at "two for one" XO sales this Christmas, but exactly how would that work?

I say that every OLPC XO sale will actually be a dual transaction very common in the nonprofit world. When a laptop is sold, the buyer will be informed that a portion of the sale price is going to the OLPC Foundation as a tax-deducible donation. Then the retailer will deliver the computer to the buyer, keeping a slight mark-up to cover logistics and administration. The remainder will be an unrestricted donated to OLPC Foundation.

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OLPC XO-1: Now $205 Dollars Per Laptop in Uruguay

Posted on September 14, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Price, Countries: Uruguay, Laptops: XO-1

205 dollars for one

Now that Laboratorio Tecnológico del Uruguay's Ceibal Request for Proposal deadline has passed, and the submitted proposals are open for public review, guess what the One Laptop Per Child bid is for OLPC Uruguay?

According to Proyecto Ceibal, OLPC partnered with Brighstar Uruguay SA to offer XO laptops at $205 per computer.

$205 per laptop per child?! That's no where near the original, and now fanciful, "$100 laptop" marketing campaign. In fact, that's almost the Libyan MOU price of $208 per laptop. And remember, one $208 laptop per child would be 73% of Nigeria's entire government income.

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OLPC XO on Sale for Christmas Computer Buyers?!

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Sales Talk: Price, Countries: USA, Prototypes: XO

He too will buy two for one

Want to buy an OLPC XO "$100 laptop" for your child this Christmas? Or do you covet the clock-stopping hot technology for the perfect kid (at heart); you? Now you may be in luck this Christmas.

Mary Lou Jepsen told Reuters that One Laptop Per Child is aiming to have XO retail sales by this Christmas!

As the foundation prepares for mass production of its first model, the XO, to begin in October, it is looking for ways to subsidize manufacturing of the devices so that it can get more of them into the hands of poor children, Jepsen said.

Profits from consumer sales would go for that purpose, said Jepsen. "We're trying to get the best deal we can," she said. She added the foundation is looking at selling the machines over the Internet and talking to companies with "a big presence on the Web," although she declined to identify any by name.

Whoa!

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OLPC Product Roadmap to Financial Independence

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Hardware: Peripherals, Sales Talk: Price, Sales Talk: Products, Hardware: Screen

Looking at the One Laptop Per Child product roadmap slide that Digitimes captured at Mary Lou Jepsen's keynote presentation at the International Display Manufacturing Conference (IDMC) on July 4th, I was struck by a vision on independence. Just look at the slide - do you see the same vision that I do? A vision of OLPC financial independence!

Do you see what I see? Do you see the One Laptop Per Child Foundation shifting the $30 Billion dollar cost burden from participating countries, all of them financially challenged beyond the capacity to buy one computer per child? Do you see all those commercial products?

We can always start with a commercial version of the OLPC itself, as many of us already have, in our dreams. An XO stepped up to adult computing needs, but sill not the bloatware of a Wintel set-up, priced per the slide at $1,000, but built using the XO cost methods. Right there, OLPC could rack up per-computer profits to buy a whole country's worth of Children's Machines.

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Today's $50 OLPC XO Laptop Lesson: Check OLPC News First

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Commentary: Press, Sales Talk: Price, Prototypes: XO

A $50 OLPC price point

On July 4th, Digitimes attempted to break the news that One Laptop Per Child was predicting that the price of the Children's Machine XO computer would drop to ~~$100 dollars~~ $50 dollars by 2009:

Notebooks under the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) advocated "One Laptop Per Child" (OLPC) program are in a strong position to be the hottest PC for emerging markets and prices will shrink to US$50 in 2009, said Mary Lou Jepsen, the founding chief technology officer (CTO) of the program.

The very next day, Ken Fisher wrote in Ars Technica that he contacted Race Point Group:

According to OLPC, Jepsen was misquoted and the DigiTimes story is "full of errors."

Before Digitimes starts to dance, or we question who is Race Point Group, since the last time we heard, W2 was OLPC's pro bono PR team, I'd like to point out that the $50 price point projection is not new for One Laptop Per Child or the readers of OLPC News.

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Alternate One Laptop Per Child Financing Options

Posted on June 13, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Donors, Sales Talk: Price

How can we afford this?

When countries start looking at one laptop per child, be it the OLPC XO, the Classmate PC, or even the Asustek's Eee PC, the cost of just the hardware becomes rather overwhelming, rather quickly. One Laptop Per Nigerian child would be 73% of the entire governmental income and One Laptop Per Argentinean child would be half of the non-salary education budget. Countries like Rwanda or Nepal have no hope to afford even $100 per child out of their own national budgets. So what are the alternate One Laptop Per Child financing options? Bram Ellens, a Business Developer at eBay, asks it the best:

What's the optimal business model to assure a healthy future for the $100 laptop? Selling directly to countries and leaving it to them how to distribute might not prove the most sustainable solution. In the vaccine business in the third world one of the biggest problems is reselling subsidized vaccines to 2nd or first world countries. Why not think of business models as innovative as the laptop itself? I think a great product like this deserves it.

Why not leveraging micro credits to make it affordable to families to buy it themselves in stead of giving it away? Or monetize the cult status the machine now already has in western countries?

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Negroponte's "$100 Laptop" Blowback: Asustek's Eee PC

Posted on June 06, 2007 by Wayan Vota in Use Cases: Business, Sales Talk: Competition, Sales Talk: Intel, Sales Talk: Price, Prototypes: XO

Back when he first introduced his grand dream to the world - improving education through Constructionism, personified in a laptop for every child to learn and play with - Nicholas Negroponte picked an amazing marketing meme to express his dream's affordability: "$100 laptop".

In doing so, Negroponte subverted his original idea in the minds of many. Gone was an educational tool for children. In its place was the idea of an adult computer for $100. So while the One Laptop Per Child team was focused on a primary school student-centric design, everyone else was thinking about teenagers and adults using low cost computers.

This second, more mainstream idea is now coming back around to One Laptop Per Child in the form of competition from Intel. First there was the Classmate PC, which is a quick OLPC catch-up computer that sacrifices much to make a sub-$300 price point but at least pays lip service to Dr. Negroponte's original education idea, even as the OLPC pot called the Intel kettle black.

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Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of One Laptop Per Child's "$100 laptop" computer, the OLPC Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte.