Slashdot Mirror
Intel, Microsoft Despised the XO Laptop
gregsim writes "The Wall Street Journal today reports that the new XO laptop, centerpiece of the One Laptop Per Child project, is stimulating an active response from both Intel and Microsoft. The companies evidently feel threatened by the little upstart, intended to help third-world children. (The XO runs Linux and uses AMD chips.) Microsoft has cut their software to $3 each and Intel has designed their own laptop called the Classmate to sell between $230 and $300, nearly double the XO's price. Rather than defend the relative merits of his creation, professor Negroponte is crying foul and (if the article is to be believed) not even arguing the technical merits. The initial demand for the XO has fallen well below Mr. Negroponte's projections as Intel and Microsoft have successfully argued that their entries are superior. 45,000 have been ordered through the Give One, Get One campaign. I am happy that I ordered mine — it will be a landmark model in any case."
It seems to me that the children to whom these laptops are going don't need whizbang computing power, they just need basic computing ability. The OLPC project has no need to "argue the technical merits" of their device against potentially more powerful (but more expensive) competition when the price for this technology is the lowest around.
Competition is good, but anti-competition is bad. Negroponte's argument is that the big boys are smothering XO in the crib with half-assed attempts at being cheap (but DRM and IP laden).
...But I digress. TREMBLE PUNY HUMANS!ONE DAY MY SPECIES WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!
"If Negreponte's goal is to get cheap laptops in the hands of poor children, why would he be angry?"
If Microsoft and Intel put Negreponte out of 'business' by selling subsidised low-cost PCs, how long do you think they'll continue to sell them afterwards?
They're not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts, they're doing it because they see a competitor they want to eliminate.
Deleted
The real annoying thing is that they are not jumping in the market to help kids but undermine a non profit so they can get the market. Other companies like AMD have been helping the effort, but Microsoft and Intel see it as competition. This is a non profit effort. Next the pharmaceuticals will be going after the red cross because they want to sell cheap blood alternatives to disaster victims. Yeah competition! I am proud to have gotten one.
If so, I'm sorry to say he lacks the cynicism to deal with politicians, specially those from third world nations. These individuals will endorse any project that makes them look good. An OLPC endorsement is marketing gold from a politician's point of view, because it ties education, children and technology -- areas which third world nations are very reluctant to invest in -- all at zero cost.
Talk is cheap.
I'm not sure who I'm madder at: Intel & Microsoft for their transparent claims of "trying to help", the potential recipients of the XO who are being fooled into not ordering it, or folks like you who are not seeing any problem with this whole cock-up.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Competition is always welcomed, or so says everyone here
Do _you_ still say so, after this scenario?
There's a big difference between actual competition (which is great) and competition that exists only long enough to bankrupt a competitor so that your primary market is extended (if only for a few more months).
If MS and Intel want to seriously get -- and STAY -- in the game of providing system for the developing world, that's great. The concern is that they'll produce just enough press releases for the XO to stop getting orders it needs to stay viable, then once the XO is basically dead, MS/Intel say "oh, well now that we look at the market, we really think tour new $500 design is more appropriate". Then it would take another year or three for the XO or something similar to get back into production. Anyone with more than a few months of experience in the computer industry is familiar with this pattern.
As a side note, I was shocked when my sister, who is about as technical as "my computer's cupholder is broken!" actually mentioned the "buy one get one" promotion over Thanksgiving. They've done a great job marketing, even if my sister didn't have any idea what the program was about or what made the computer unusual, she just knew about it as the $150 laptop.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
What is being offered by Microsoft and Intel is an inferior, but more expensive product. They are trying to leverage their (arguable) monopolies to not only set a higher price than the market wants, but to make sure legions of children don't grow up learning non-Intel, non-Microsoft products.
It is hard to blame Microsoft entirely, since they can't exactly compete with free. Intel, on the other hand, has no excuse. If they were truly acting competitively, they would try to sell Negroponte on their processors and compete with AMD (you know, their actual competitor) that way, and not screw over those kids in the process.
Competition is good...
However, Monopolies are bad. This is a clear case of a monopoly using its power to stifle long term competition at a short term profit loss.
Do you honestly think Microsoft would offer both an OS and Office for $3 if it wasn't trying to stifle competition? As soon as the OLPC project is broke and a memory, expect the price of Microsoft's software to increase exponentially.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Actually, they have done something. If you haven't noticed, computers have gone from being $10K to $300 or less for a budget machine. Laptops are also getting ever cheaper and were going to be hitting the $300 price point themselves because middle-class kids all want laptops and not all parents are all that rich. There are two kinds of poor countries we're talking about here: There's China and India, who don't need our help, their economies are exploding and are going to take care of themselves, and then there's the African countries wracked with violence who wouldn't have money to spare on laptops for all their children no matter how cheap they were.
Depends who does the buying...
If the people buying these machines aren't spending their own money, and intel or microsoft offer them some money into their own back pocket in exchange for spending more of someone else's money, what do you think they'll do?
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
But in this case, companies are entering a [new] market in order to kill competition. No wonder, even in the so called developed capitalist markets of the industrialized world like Canada, no foreigner can own a majority stake in the telecommunications sector for example.
The problem is companies like Microsoft and Intel go unpunished when they effect a coup de grace, against a gentleman like Negreponte, who is actually trying to do SOMETHING. Fact is no one knows what the real solution is, but you can't defend Microsoft's right to participate in foreign corruption just because the place is a shit-hole.
Under the influence of Post-Cyberpunk Gonzo Journalism
Studies in India have shown that the best way to reduce population growth in a democracy is to educate women. Percolation of computers and cell phones into the rural areas have allowed significant (class room/world exposure type of) education to happen even outside the schools. This has been a more recent phenomenon and while these have had definite economic advantages (e.g. google - kerala fishermen cell phones). It is not clear as yet whether this type of education will also help in the same way but it definitely seems plausible. In the absence of coercion there appears to be no other reliable way to reduce the growth rate. Needless to say, the benefits of education and access to computers has obvious advantages in things like agriculture, etc.
If it's more expensive and inferior then it'll be unsuccessful.
Only if the market is actually free (of biased legislation, etc.)
Behold "peace" with Intel and M$:
but
Par for the Wintel course, self restraint is foolish because M$ and Intel will always pull every trick they can. When convicted monopolists urge you to hold back, listening to them is the worst thing you can do. Intel traded a few million dollars for what's going to millions of units in sales. That's too bad, because Windoze is the wrong OS for the job.
It's easy to see that the usual one size fits all Windoze is not useful to school children, especially those in the developing world. It's designed for US fortune 500 businesses and to satisfy the wants of the MAFIAA. It's dependent on a $400 "office" suite for the most basic of paper writing in English and it has little else. Native editing and authoring tools are pathetic, networking is designed for an office LAN and media tools are designed to extract money from rich US college students rather than to encourage creativity. Foreign language support in Windoze is pathetic, as you would expect from software that can't take corrections in the field. All of this can be said about M$'s latest and greatest OS. I'm scared of what they have to offer for $3. Any developing nation that wants to see what will happen to the Intel machine has only to look at what happens to the millions of used laptops the developed world disposes of daily in their backyard. Laptops being tossed out by the developed world are more powerful and have better software but could be used right now by developing nations for next to nothing. They are not used because they are not well suited to the task and Wintel laptops that make it to the developing world today are sent there as toxic waste. OLPC addressed all of these concerns in their design.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
There are a number of things wrong with that statement. It's an extremest point of view that "we shouldn't worry about X until Y and Z are fixed". Similar statements are "we shouldn't try to cure aids until after we cure cancer". Yes, parts/most of Africa has a number of problems larger than "kids don't have laptops". But if you know anything about this project, it's not about giving kids laptops so they can bang around on MySpace all day like american kids do. I suggest you get educated about the project, goals, the technology implementations, etc. Download an emulated version. Try out the server version that teachers/schools will run. Understand the potential impact on education in Africa, which may accelerate forward progress of upcoming generations in Africa.
I would include dishonest advertising as another factor making a market non-free.
In the USA many jobs require some basic knowledge of computer concepts, like files and folders, user accounts and passwords, use of a mouse, etc. They also require knowledge of word processor use, spreadsheets, e-mail, web browsing, etc. For those uses, Windows, Linux and OS X are interchangeable.
The XO operating system is a little further out there, because the UI is quite different from Windows or mainstream Linux distributions, but even there the differences aren't going so large that significant retraining is required. Especially since the XO is specifically designed to encourage exploration and make its users comfortable with the computer, rather than afraid of it. A user who is willing to explore a little and understands basic concepts can easily figure out how to get the job done, without a lot of remedial training.
Even more important than all of that is the simple fact that we're talking about kids who aren't going to be in the workforce for years, and during that time the systems are going to change -- probably more radically than they have in the last 10 years. The key is to understand what computers are and how they work, and for that purpose the XO is a significantly better system than any variety of Windows. I think kids who grow up using an XO laptop will probably be more capable of using a Windows 8 system than kids who grow up on Windows.
Finally, odds are that in the parts of the world where lots of XO laptops are used, when the kids enter the workforce they won't be using Windows anyway. That, of course, is what terrifies Microsoft.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.