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Intel Laptop Competes With One Laptop Per Child
Tracy Reed writes "According to the BBC, Intel has designed and begun marketing it's own low-cost laptop targeted at education in developing countries. 'Professor Negroponte, who aims to distribute millions of laptops to kids in developing countries, said Intel had hurt his mission "enormously". Speaking to US broadcaster CBS, Intel's chairman denied the claims. "We're not trying to drive him out of business," said Craig Barrett. "We're trying to bring capability to young people." Mr Barrett has previously dismissed the $100 laptop as a "gadget".'"
Two Laptops Per Child
Competition is one thing in a regular market, but the accusation is that Intel is using their marketplace power and financial reserves to undercut a not-for-profit to force them out of the market as part of their corporate rivalry with AMD, who supplied the CPUs for the OLPC machines. That's something different from healthy competition.
Negroponte's upset that Intel has been sniping out the specific countries that OLPC is targeting, telling governments to hold off until Intel's offering is ready, publishing material like "the shortcomings of the One Laptop per Child approach," etc. Intel doesn't at all like the fact that a huge number of kids around the world are going to cut their teeth on AMD / Linux based systems. As a for profit company, the tactics they're using to compete with the (non-profit) OLPC group are kind of sad, since it's only the kids who will really suffer from this.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classmate_PC: The Classmate PC, in contrast to the XO (which does not require anything extra) includes a Trusted Platform Module (TPM)[2] to provide any local Windows XP Embedded installation with access to hardware-based DRM.
I think the problem is two-fold:
1. If Intel were really interested in "trying to bring capability to young people" then why didn't they sign on with the OLPC project in the first place? By having Intel generate a separate project, resources are inherently divided. According to TFA, Intel originally laughed at the idea of OLPC. Now they are copying it. Why didn't they just agree to help OLPC?
2. In TFA, Negroponte reportedly is accusing Intel of selling their Classmate PC below production cost. Such a tactic is used, of course, to driver others out of the market, so as to establish monopoly. If OLPC and Intel both try to sell their laptops to various countries, and the Intel one has "more bang for the buck" (because they are subsidizing it), then obviously countries will pick the Intel one. Then OLPC dies and suddenly the Intel ones start mysteriously costing more.
The OLPC project has the aim to create extremely inexpensive educational laptops in a cost-effective way. They want a sustainable solution to education. Intel, according to Negroponte, is not working towards that goal.
No. Intel and Microsoft are interested in replacing the OLPC (small, light, huge battery life, open, safe) with little shrunken down normal laptops. With the OLPC you get the great battery life, all the programs (and programming languages) designed to encourage learning. With the Classmate you get... Windows. And Windows software.
As I see it, the OLPC is about learning about computers and getting kids interested in learning. There is a ton to like about it. The Classmate is about getting kids used to Wintel computers, and locked into the status quo. Sure, they are both "computers", but they are targeted very differently.
But OLPC is not for profit but Intel can dump classmate PCs cheaper than they can be made. They can call this "philanthropy". They can kill a better (in many ways, but not hardware speed wise) computer and get more people who come up on their system and used to that. But they are cheaper (or could be)! They are more powerful! They run Windows (read: it's a "real" computer).
The OLPC is a revolution in many ways. If Intel really wanted to just help people, they would donate free CPUs or memory to the OLPC project, or at least sell them undercutting AMD. Instead of doing that and helping, they shrunk a normal laptop, made a few little changes, and have decided their way is better.
Negroponte came off a little paranoid in the 60 minutes interview, but I agree with him. They are scared. If Intel subsidized the OLPC maybe they would be willing to put the little Intel stickers on every one.
I'd gladly buy an OLPC today if I could. I find the little computer fascinating (both hardware, software, and principal). The other groups (MS and Intel, mostly) just seem to be trying to make a low cost laptop that is otherwise what everyone else uses, with the same problems.
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Which would you rather use?
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
His main complaint is that Intel is "dumping", that is, selling them below cost (and more importantly, below the OLPC's price) just to get a foothold on what could grow into a really nice monopoly somday.
Intel with $$$ vs. a non-profit group with no $$$... that's just poor sportsmanship. Intel needs to back off.
Negroponte probably has some good proof that the ClassMatePC is being sold below cost since his group has been working on a lowcost design for a couple of years and included negotiations with both Microsoft and Intel. Both of which are involved in the ClassMatePC.
Just like how Microsoft started giving out Microsoft Windows for far far below market costs to Taiwan when those HP and Dell notebooks running Linux were selling very well, they both( Intel and Microsoft ) are subsidizing their product to keep the "competition" from gaining ground.
If I was seeing Linux on the ClassMatePC instead of MS Windows, I might be able to believe that Intel could be motivated by charity but with Microsoft involved and how BOTH companies blasted OLPC in the press, it's all about business and their sole purpose here is to get OLPC to fail. The ClassMatePC would be pulled from the market later since cheap hardware and software is NOT what Intel or Microsoft want. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
learning about history by watching the History channel.
Hey now, the History channel has taught me more about ghosts, biblical history, major disasters, and true crime than my stuffy old history professor ever did.
OLPC is like apple, it's and end-to-end specification. I forget which CPU they are using, I assume it's a VIA since the whole thing is 4 watts. But even if it were an Intel CPU it's a grave danger.
1) Like apple they could choose to change processors at any time. Thus they could move away from X86 if they wished.
2) they will establish a huge software market that does not use intel specific advancements.
3) It will use graphics other then Intel graphics
In short by creating an enourmous consumer market for generic lowest common demoninator software, it removes a tremendous amount of product differentiation the INtel sells. To see this think back about 8 years ago when you had a choice of buying an intel P4 or P3 or buying whatever AMD was selling. You were not really sure if all your code optimizers would work on AMD, not sure if certain drivers would fail on AMD. It was a gamble. The answer was in most cases there was no problems at all. But we all had seen examples of problems. Intel was the safe bet. Plus when optimizations using SSE or analogs came out they were written for intel first. And lord save you if you bought Via or god forbid, transmeta.
With a giant market in non-intel optimizations out there this advantage will be nullified. Software will respect the generic CPU needs. That hurts intel's premium price advantage.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You forgot one
Intel joins the fray, OLPC can no longer get enough countries to sign on for the project (due to worries about the new intel machine), making the mass production price of $100 unattainable, OLPC drops out when they run out of money.
Intel, in using Windows and their massive R&D team finally concludes that $100 is too cheap, and decides it's not worth it to their "stockholders" to continue the project, and they drop out also. Everyone loses.
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
This is not the main goal of the Microsoft/Intel project. They will say this to the public but their intentions are to stop the competitions products from gaining a significant market share. Both Microsoft and Intel had been offered opportunities to be part of the OLPC project and most likely pricing was their main issue. Negroponte knows this and it is likey why he said what he did in the 60Minutes piece.
If Intel can pull it off cheaper, should I feel bad for Negroponte?
They can't but they can get Microsoft involved and split the loss so they can compete with a small group who have researched and invested a few years into making it work and have no licensing issues/expenses by using Linux and OSS. Again, Negroponte knows this because they've already tried to negotiate with Microsoft and Intel along with know what such hardware is going to cost to manufacture in quantity.
If this is truly altruistic work, then he should embrace Intel's commitment, and try to work together.
Microsoft and Intel have no purpose doing what they are doing but to protect their marketshare and their brand names. Both of which help them keep their prices and market pricing at fat profit levels. The OLPC does not appear to be driven by profits and what Negroponte has done in the past shows he has an altruistic foundation. Microsoft nor Intel can show this and history shows quite the opposite.
If this is for-profit capitalism, merely disguised as charity, then may the best man win.
One side is business profit driven( Microsoft/Intel-ClassMatePC ) while the other is charity driven( OLPC ). They are crossing paths and we already know that the billions behind the Microsoft/Intel project is hurting the OLPC project since Negroponte has already said this.
And it just blows me away that Intel would fall for this level when there has been nothing said in the press or otherwise which would have locked Intel out of future designs. AMD is not giving their CPU's away for free. Now Microsoft, that's another story since they absolutely can not allow Linux and OSS to gain traction anywhere. Once you've stopped cleaning Windows, you don't go back and with the open nature of the OLPC, the closed box of Microsoft Windows/software would be painful and constraining.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Some of the reasons the costs are lower than an mp3 player are because only governments can by this in bulk
1) pass on all distribution, shipping, marketing costs to the government.
2) likewise no warrantee or after sales service.
3) only volume pre-orders. so their is no risk to the manfacturer on scale of production. All ecnomoies of scale are achieved on the first order.
4) Other than the software there's no expensive cutting edge components.
5) no retail stores, no middlemen, no warehouses.
6) no sales floor packaging.
Presumably those costs account for the majority of costs in the sales price of your MP3, which if it lacked any of those you would not buy it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
How about these:
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Well, let us address these reasons, and perhaps you will learn to see them.
The OLPC isn't just intended for kids to do their homework on. It's intended to be a window on the world, providing collaborative computing and access to information.
When they're not using the OLPC as a schoolbook, they can be using it to help their parents find information that will help them all survive, for example.
Also, you might not be aware of this, but many schools in the third world don't have electricity. If they have light other than the ambient, they're burning something. The yo-yo charger of the OLPC is infinitely more useful than the plug-in charger of the ClassmatePC if there's no where to plug in!
Advantage: Clearly goes to OLPC.
Actually, there will likely be far more for the students to do with their wifi than the classmatepc will provide. ClassmatePC provides the hardware and the OS, and that's it. Period, end of story. OLPC provides educational (and other) software out of the box and provides it on a system with an interface that is, if not intuitive, at least more intuitive, less language-oriented, and vastly simpler than Windows. The ClassmatePC is okay for the developed world where the children already know how to use Windows, but the OLPC's simple and clean interface is a huge advantage.
In addition, it can not really be argued that Windows could be more secure than the ClassmatePC. So there is another reason to avoid Windows. There people have no reason to reduce their total cost of 0wnership.
Advantage: OLPC
The idea of the OLPC is primarily to serve people who live in places where there probably isn't going to be anything to plug in to. And the OLPC plus a USB ethernet device is cheaper and still lower-power than the ClassmatePC. But virtually none of the target audience for the OLPC needs wired ethernet.
Advantage: Intel if anyone, but really nobody. Irrelevant.
I can think of two reasons. First, intel doesn't want to work with them, because their CPU is from AMD. Second, intel had the chance to work with them, but instead they called the OLPC a "gadget" and decided to make their own competing device, then in order to sabotage the OLPC project in favor of the ClassmatePC they started putting out articles on "what's wrong with" the OLPC and publicly discrediting it in totally irrelevant but still media-attention-grabbing ways.
Intel is not interested in working with the OLPC and never had been. They see its popularity only as a sign that they need to enter the market themselves; but in doing so they have brought a product which is utterly unsuited to the target market.
It's not a surprise that intel is scum. They're a publicly traded company and they have a responsibility to be bastards to satisfy their shareholders. But it is a surprise that so many morally bankrupt individuals would defend their actions and act as if the OLPC project or Negroponte caused this problem.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
People, Don't forget that with this OLPC system, not only does M$ crap itself at the thought of millions of linux competent kids, as intel does in chips, but Intel could loose out in another way, as could M$
OLPC is a paradigm shift in computing. There are NO licence costs, everything is useable, for free, Everything has been designed from the ground up, its a new legacy free, tightly tuned computer that has thrown out all the old PC baggage and nastyness, with a new light, useable OS, that can fly on a 350ish MHz machine.
If it works, there is no reason why they cant make desktop systems using the same code, optimised, open source components. Imagine an OLPC desktop with 512MB RAM and a hard drive, and perhaps an 800MHz chip. It could potentially change home desktop computing in developing worlds forever.
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