OLPC CTO Quits to Commercialize OLPC Technology

theodp writes "The One Laptop Per Child project suffered a blow Monday, with CTO Mary Lou Jepsen quitting the nonprofit to start a for-profit company to commercialize technology she invented with OLPC (the first of Jepsen's pending OLPC patents was published by the USPTO on Dec. 13). The OLPC project halted consumer sales of the cheap laptop at the end of December."

Comments

G1G1 didn't end in November

[TimHunter]

The OLPC project halted consumer sales of the cheap laptop at the end of November. Erm, no. The quoted story is datelined November 25. It's January now, folks. The G1G1 program was extended until yesterday http://www.laptopgiving.org/en/index.php/.

Re:Huh ...

[Dan East]

Not that I RTFA or anything.

You got that right. FTA: "I will continue to give OLPC product at cost, while providing commercial entities products they would like at a profit," Jepsen wrote in an e-mail.

She was responsible for designing the display, which, depending on who you ask, is either really novel and cutting edge, or a substandard compromise to modern display design. Personally, the display is not anything I would want for standard laptop-like use.

The OLPC has their low-power display, and now she can go off and make the technology available to other markets instead of keeping it exclusive to the OLPC. Sounds like a win-win situation to me.

Dan East

It Makes Sense

[bmartin]

A person claiming responsibility for some of the XO's innovations has left the OLPC in order to be compensated for her inventions. I don't see the problem with this. The power consumption technologies are amazing; hard drives, processors, and displays all consume a lot of power.

My laptop only runs about 40 minutes at full bore (i.e., if I disable all of the power saving features). There is much work to be done in this area. I'd like to see a huge transition from HDD to solid state disks (i.e., 2.5" and 3.5" flash-like drives), as well as from CISC to RISC processors, especially for servers running on the x86 architecture. The former is probably more likely. HDD pales in comparison to SSD for reliability, performance, and power consumption. We already have small devices that run on flash memory; why can't we use similar technology for laptops in the future?

Re:It Makes Sense

[MMC Monster]

Frankly, I'm surprised someone hasn't commercialized the OLPC hardware/software combination yet.

The specs are free, and the hardware is quite impressive (battery life and durability wise). Sell a laptop for $200 that can do internet access and you will likely sell-out to the Walmart crowd.

Re:It Makes Sense

[MacTO]

A person claiming responsibility for some of the XO's innovations has left the OLPC in order to be compensated for her inventions. The main problem that I see: she has benefited from another purse while developing this technology, then kept the patents for her self to benefit on. It may be acceptable in a human-eat-human world, but it is far from charitable. Maybe it would have been better for her to move on and develop better technology, then patent and profit from that. For example, that XO display has a number of benefits over the competition but still has deficiencies. With her knowledge of the original, perhaps she could have gone on to develop one with a higher contrast reflective mode. (As an example.) That way at least she is doing something outside of the context of the OLPC project to add value, without straight off stealing the goods.

Re:It Makes Sense

[Registered Coward v2]

The main problem that I see: she has benefited from another purse while developing this technology, then kept the patents for her self to benefit on. It may be acceptable in a human-eat-human world, but it is far from charitable. Maybe it would have been better for her to move on and develop better technology, then patent and profit from that. For example, that XO display has a number of benefits over the competition but still has deficiencies. With her knowledge of the original, perhaps she could have gone on to develop one with a higher contrast reflective mode. (As an example.) That way at least she is doing something outside of the context of the OLPC project to add value, without straight off stealing the goods.

How? We have no idea what the agreement between her and OLPC was; and as another poster pointed out the patent is assigned to OPLC - not her. I would guess tehre has been some sort of licensing agreement reached between her and OLPC that both find reasonable and beneficial to avoid nasty lawsuits.

She, understandably, wants to make some money off of her ideas; while still benefiting OPLC (selling components at cost per TFA). Just becasue she was at a non-profit doesn't mean she shouldn't do what many have done before - leave to start their own company. often, non-profits can't or won't commercialize products; and employees leave to fill what they see as a market opportunity; having worked at a non-profit I've seen that happen first hand - in this case; after trying to convince the organization that they could create a for-profit sub and use the profits to fund other activities.

Re:It Makes Sense

[turgid]

Frankly, I'm surprised someone hasn't commercialized the OLPC hardware/software combination yet.

Look at what intel and Microsoft have already tried to do to the OLPC. Do you think they'd stand back and let anyone else have a go?

Re:It Makes Sense

[asuffield]

from CISC to RISC processors

That's 1990s stuff. The whole CISC vs RISC thing has been completely obsoleted by modern chip designs, which render the distinction meaningless. RISC was a solution to a problem that no longer exists (and CISC was nothing more than the lack of a solution).

You can build CPUs fast or low power. For ia32 CPUs built fast, see Intel and AMD. For them built low-power, see Via. You can buy laptops with Via chips in them, and they have considerably more battery life. Don't whine when you find out that they won't run Oblivion, or Vista, because they aren't that fast.

One Cell Phone Per Child is next ?

[gelfling]

I wonder if there is some way to bootstrap this to get the price of high function cell phones down? After all the high end HTC phones are little more than palmtop computers that have a phone instead of a modem and NIC.

Re:One Cell Phone Per Child is next ?

[sumdumass]

Yea, but the sims reader and the locking device would cost around $800 or so. You would still end up with an over priced phone that doesn't do exactly what you want and you can't take it to another provider when you find out the current one is crap when considering your needs.

And with that, you still need a quality microphone and headset. The plus side is you could wrap the contents into a box like shape that resembles a womens work boot and get that 80's retro look down pat. The good thing about it, unless your driving, would be that you could wind it up when your battery goes dead while talking on it. Just don't wind it up while texting and driving at the same time.

And for a serious note, I'm sure something productive could be done but I'm not sure anyone with the power to do so would be interested. They already control the game and it is a very profitable one at that. It is easier to just mark up the costs and sell you a "plan" while you think your getting a discount and they are still pulling in the profit.

Not Necessarily Bad

[lansirill]

She'll continue to consult with OLPC and provide product to OLPC at cost. I think, I may be overlooking something, I'd love to see all of the OLPC tech released into the commercial market this way. It could help drive the manufacturing costs down and get the XO back down to the original $100US per unit goal. I participated in the Buy One, Get One program because I thought the hardware sounded damn handy, despite being configured for children.

I am all for anything that brings us closer to a similar commercial unit at a reasonable price as long as it isn't directly detrimental to the OLPC project. This does seem like this could go in a similar direction to the Classmate PC, but that would be the decision of the final manufacturer/distributor and would presumably require price breaks to be competitive. Honestly I haven't looked into the Classmate much, but I may have to spend a little time looking into it. I disliked having Windows on such a project, but I really don't know enough about the hardware to feel strongly about it.

Re:Altruism doesn't exist

[hab136]

The Third World doesn't need laptops. It needs rice and medicine. Or ideally, it needs none of these things, since the reason it's having problems is that it's disorganized and cannot support its own population. Let them die out and the third world stabilizes itself.

Rice and medicine are great in the short term, like after a disaster, but long term any free aid like that just kills local industry, ensuring that the third world country you're "helping" remains third world - and dependent on aid.

Laptops to poor people may seem useless (and I'm not convinced of their worth), but at least it's trying to change the underlying cause of being poor (access to production), instead of simply prolonging their existence for another day.

Re:Is it just me?

[DrSkwid]

It was a Negroponte project, what did you expect.

Re:Huh ...

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Not only that, but if commercial sales result in higher volume, then the production cost will go down, and it's a win for everyone: OLPC users, consumers who buy the commercial version, and of course the open source software world in which this machine lives.

Just sell the thing for $199

[Animats]

OK, they need to get the price down to $100. Instead of selling them in the US at $400 at a 100% profit margin to raise money for charity, they need to just sell the things for $199 commercially and take over the low end market. In a year or two, they'll be down to $99 through sheer volume.

Those things ought to be in bubble-packs at the local drugstore, alongside the cheap calculators, electronic dictionaries, and other low end electronics. This wouldn't stroke Negroponte's ego, but it would get the things out there in volume. Soon enough, they'd be available all over the world, purely on price.

Jepsen probably sees this. Negroponte wants to meet with heads of state and be in the press.

Re:Just sell the thing for $199

[slamb]

Those things ought to be in bubble-packs at the local drugstore, alongside the cheap calculators, electronic dictionaries, and other low end electronics. This wouldn't stroke Negroponte's ego, but it would get the things out there in volume. Soon enough, they'd be available all over the world, purely on price.

They're doing pretty well on volume now. They have a brand-new factory, and last month they planned to ship 150,000, then 80,000-100,000 every month after (source).

Where are they going? I just did a bit of hunting. Uruguay ordered 100,000 units(see wiki) and Peru ordered 260,000 (see this post, near bottom). According to the "country news" section, Mexico's also placed some order; I think 100,000 is the minimum order size. 150,000 to 170,000 individual G1G1 orders and 15,000 for Birmingham, Alabama, for a total of around 400,000 G1G1 laptops (see interview), so I believe they have solid orders for 800,000 laptops.

Hopefully when they've had success with those 800,000, the other countries that originally intended to be part of the launch will get back on the bandwagon. So while I'm not a manufacturing expert, I would guess the difference between 1 million/year and 2 million/year isn't going to hugely affect the cost.

Re:Just sell the thing for $199

[slamb]

OK, they need to get the price down to $100. Instead of selling them in the US at $400 at a 100% profit margin to raise money for charity, they need to just sell the things for $199 commercially and take over the low end market. In a year or two, they'll be down to $99 through sheer volume.

$100 is in some ways a harder target now than when they originally set it. I don't recall exactly when they first talked of it costing $100, but the dollar has fallen in the last five years (e.g. 25% against the GBP), and the OLPC folks have upgraded their system specs (e.g., 128 MB RAM -> 256 and 512 MB flash -> 1024).

Re:Just sell the thing for $199

[jc42]

I'd happily pay $200 for an XO, I'd pay $250 if I had to, and I might (after a few beers) splurge $300 on one. But $400 for one device? Never going to happen.

But apparently lots of people would. If you look at the actual price of things like an iPhone or BlackBerry, i.e. how much of your 2-year contract is for the PDA, you'll find that they are selling for well over $400, and selling quite well. And, as various others have pointed out, the OLPC really is just a slightly larger PDA with a handle. And it's a much better PDA than most (if not all) of the others on the market. Especially if you're 10 years old. ;-)

the first of Jepsen's pending OLPC patents?

[niceone]

The linked patent may have Jepsen listed as an inventor, but it is assigned to "ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD ASSOCIATION, INC.", so I'm not sure why it's mentioned in the summary. She's can't use that without OLPC's permission.

Re:Is it just me?

[BeanThere]

It's just you. Seriously, calm down and take a few deep breaths; the sheer awfulness-of-it-all you're seeing everywhere doesn't really exist. It costs $200 because that's about what it costs to build such things with current tech, that's all; it's not such a bad price for what you get; licensing and commercialising the technologies is not evil - on the contrary, by increasing distribution and scale, they can make it cheaper (and there is free market competition now from AO Asus and Intel to keep the prices low) - cheap simple computers selling in large numbers WILL help the 3rd world. Last I checked they had quite a few orders from 3rd-world countries, which ARE going to benefit (basically all (non-corrupt) free-market trade is mutually beneficial - if they weren't going to benefit, even at the current price, they wouldn't have bought it). I live in a 3rd-world country. Trust me; any cheap computer is better than no computer at all (and NO, 3rd-world countries are not "just going to make their own" - the reason they're 3rd-world is that they don't (yet) have it in them to just start making things like computers).

The end of G1G1 was discussed on olpc-open

[jrincayc]

Here are some links:
http://olpc.osuosl.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1414
http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-open/2007-December/thread.html#459

The general reason given for ending G1G1 was that it was a strain on the OLPC volunteers. See especially Nicole Lee's post http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/olpc-open/2007-December/000474.html

Re:The end of G1G1 was discussed on olpc-open

[jc42]

The general reason given for ending G1G1 was that it was a strain on the OLPC volunteers.

This makes a lot of sense. Negroponte and the others have been repeatedly emphasizing to their critics that they're not a computer vendor; they're an educational organization. Negroponte is a professor at MIT, not a corporate CEO. They haven't (to my knowledge) come right out and said it, but I expect that they're hoping for some startup companies that can take away the pressure to market this thing. This seems to be exactly what's happening in this case. The patent is staying with the OLPC crowd, and presumably they're happy to license it to someone who wants to work on commercial sales (and give back part of their profits as license fees).

If the OLPC crowd had gone with commercial sales, it would have just bogged them down by sucking them full time into marketing and support. The educational project would have fallen by the wayside in the rush for profits. And they'd have had no public support in their inevitable battle with Intel and Microsoft. This way, they can continue with their educational goals, and let others fight the market battle with the giant monopolists. And if it takes off commercially, maybe they can get a share of the profits.

Re:Is it just me?

[Dan Ost]

Have you played with an OLPC yet? These machines are very clearly designed for children, not adults. Nobody with adult size hands could touch type on the keyboard.

That said, they're great little machines. One of our engineers bought one and we've been playing with it for the last couple of weeks. It's small, light, waterproof, and is quite capable. As far as I can tell, from both the hardware and software standpoints, the OLPC is exactly what they promised that it would be (except it's a little more expensive...hopefully they'll be successful in bringing the price down).

Re:This will prove to be a HUGE mistake for Jepsen

[DrXym]

The "consumer demand" for OLPC is based on its price and novelty, not on its performance or utility. She has jumped ship quite prematurely and her character flaws will soon result in a bitter future for the OLPC project and her own independent ventures.

Not true. I have an Asus Eee PC. It's a fantastically useful little laptop. Sure it's not as fast as modern laptops, but its plenty fast enough for web browsing, mail, skype, word processing, even movie playback. The important thing is that it's cheap, small, light and boots and shuts down fast. You can throw it into a bag, you can open it up in coffee shops, or in a lecture hall, or wherever you like with no hassle at all. I even used it on a Ryanair clip tray the other day. If you've flown Ryanair you'll know what an impressive feat that is.

The OLPC has many of the same benefits as the Eee PC and adds a few of its own such as lower power, kid-strength robustness and swivel screen. It's screaming out for a consumer version. Sell them with some more memory, some more storage and a cut down Fedora and they'll sell by the truck load. Just like the Eee PC is doing right now.

I am really surprised they aren't commercializing the OLPC. The profits from a consumer spinoff can be used to lower costs and fund the charitable arm. Everyone wins. I'm personally disappointed since I ended up buying an Eee PC when I was very much hoping the OLPC would recognize the opportunity first. Oh well. Perhaps this story is garbled and CTO has resigned because this is exactly what they're trying to do.

Re:Close but no cigar

[nick.ian.k]

What afflicts the third world seems to be disorganization, corruption, dishonesty, and low intelligence. That's why they're in the fix they're in, just like some communities in the USA (trailer parks, urban ghettoes, "artist communes") are third world status because they're filled with dishonest, disorganized, foolish people.

And we all know that these characteristics are absolute, because everybody in these places is dishonest, disorganized, and foolish, and they're all there because they chose to be there. And because all success takes is somebody to decide they're going to dig themselves out. It's not about resources, it's about willpower. These people can end their struggle and saunter off to Cigarandbrandytown and make a mint whenever they like.

No, wait, it's not like that at all. People are born into poverty, it's a genuine bitch to get out of it, and most have to spend at least the first 16 to 18 years in it by default, during which they may either luck out and develop solid values and see what's so incredibly fucked about where they're coming from, or they may experience quite the opposite and have their health ravaged by subsisting on cheap convenience foods, using drugs, and placing heavy value on trivial material possessions viewed as luxury items --never mind the education issue. And then leaving home with no financial aspects whatsoever is an utterly fantastic way to get set to enter the job market, where most positions available for people with no certifiable skills provide precious little room for advancement in either position or wage; the result here is either changing jobs a ton and seeming unstable or unreliable, or sticking it out longer-term with one or two businesses and then not getting anywhere and looking like a slug who does the bare-minimum to not get fired.

I could go on, but speaking as somebody who *did* grow up poor and pull himself out to live in a decent neighborhood and ultimately land a job paying $40,000 a year -a sum many of you will figure as paltry, but it's more than I'd ever anticipated making when I was a kid watching the cops come and haul away the latest drug dealing neighbors every few months- I can tell you that the people who pull themselves out are exceptions. Most people are stuck there because their situation is utterly hopeless, many of them know no better, and there is precious little in the way of outside stimulus to encourage them to get out beyond waking up every day and knowing that the people in the nice houses thirty miles down the road consider you to be the scum of the earth, which isn't really "encouraging" in the way most people would use the word.

Re:Bought mine (and some child's) yesterday

[sumdumass]

Actually, it is called "social entrepreneurialism". I was hoping someone who wasn't a bitter troll could refresh my memory on this but it seems you made me dig out some information and look it up.

An example of this is Athena Partners who sells bottled watter as a non profit to raise funds for breast cancer. Baldev Farms which is one of largest Banana plantations on South India exists to raise funds for The George Foundation's Women's Empowerment program. IT is another prime example of this concept effectively working. There are more if you look around.

Re:Altruism doesn't exist

[Loke the Dog]

Europe is a net exporter of food.

Please people, can't you atleast study the basic isses of poverty and starvation based on facts rather than just having strong opinions based on assumptions? The info is on wikipedia, if you can't be bothered to even read wikipedia, you're not entitled to an opinion!

Re:Love That Profit Motive

[FailedTheTuringTest]

Your ass is correct. In 2006, the USA spent $23.5 billion on official development assistance, and $100 billion on the war in Iraq. (Iraq is currently the largest recipient of American aid, and one could debate whether that portion of the aid budget should actually be counted as part of the cost of the war. Before the Iraq war, the largest recipient of aid was Israel.)

Re:Bought mine (and some child's) yesterday

[Swave An deBwoner]

Baldev Farms which is one of largest Banana plantations on South India exists to raise funds for The George Foundation's Women's Empowerment program.

Thanks for the (previously unknown to me) examples of this type of business/philanthropy mix.

But a banana plantation in support of Women's Empowerment, hmmmmmmmmmmm ;-)

too rugged?

[zogger]

There's a dearth of rugged laptops on the market, just a few and pretty expensive. On the other hand, you can get any number of delicate laptops that commonly turn to junkage within a short time. I think this project has really pushed the envelope and embarrassed other manufacturers into considering similar better/cheaper/tougher machines. It hasn't hurt, put it that way. There are different market segments based on needs and price, we need them all, there is no one sits fits everyone machine. You want expensive and delicate, you can get that right now, they'll gladly sell you one. You want real tough and cheap,until this thing came around, not so much doable. And one of the main points with laptops are they are portable, even *gasp*, the theoretical ability to use one out in the big room with the yellow light and blue wall paint. Regular laptops are pretty sucky there, the screens disappear, you have to worry about the weather, the battery life sucks with all of them, this one however claims it is actually usable out in the light and also has a few different self powered options, meaning long range "battery life" away from a wall plug..

    I know I have been holding out getting another laptop, after having three of them, because I just can't use them outside. If I am inside, well duh I have a desktop with a big screen. and I don't hang out in starbucks and so on, but I am an outside worker and could actually use one now and then. But it has to be dust and moisture proof/resistant and be able to take some knocks beyond the normal lightweight commuter train ride and sitting at a cafe or conference table. Hopefully this better screen tech and "ruggedness" will induce other builders into making adult sized versions without them costing more than semi-decent used cars.

Re:Altruism doesn't exist

[LingNoi]

The OLPC was a marketing ploy and nothing else.

To what? Sell cheap laptops to enhance education? That's what they're doing so what's the problem?

It's not a donation, the countries it's being targeted at are buying these laptops. If anything it's an education scheme to improve a countries citizen's knowledge. It's going to take 10 maybe 15 years before we actually know if it worked of course.

The Third World doesn't need laptops. It needs rice and medicine.

Since they're the ones purchasing the laptops I don't think it is appropriate for you or me to tell them what they need.

Western aid to the third world has done nothing but breed more people who cannot take care of themselves

The OLPC isn't a donation. The countries are purchasing these PCs. Western aid is off topic.

Re:Huh ...

[grcumb]

She was responsible for designing the display, which, depending on who you ask, is either really novel and cutting edge, or a substandard compromise to modern display design. Personally, the display is not anything I would want for standard laptop-like use.

Don't be so quick to disparage it. While I'll be the first to admit that it's not really necessary for typical indoor use, the extremely high definition and brilliant contrast make it possible to use a portable device in scenarios you might not have considered before.

I did a month-long evaluation of an OLPC B2 prototype, and the thing that appealed to me most was the fact that it made it possible (or at least conceivable) to have constant access to information at all times, without worrying about rain, sun or shade, accidents, dust and most other kinds of things that make laptop-users cringe. The display played no small part in this.

I live in what the UN designates as a Least Developed Country, so I'll admit that my needs are special. But I can think of dozens of ways in which a device with similar attributes to the OLPC would be useful to inhabitants of the world's most developed cities. Their low cost and robustness, combined with their suitability to the task, finally give us true commoditisation of information technology.

This dual-mode screen is really impressive when you see it at work. It is truly innovative because it makes new uses of computers possible.

Price and volume

[rbanffy]

If the OLPC is ever to reach the US$ 100 target price (even if we give it the adjustment for a shrinking dollar) it is via production volume of its key parts. Making them available to other companies via a for-profit seems to be the best way to do it.

It was always pretty obvious to me that, even if the XO itself does not bring a huge change, its technologies and its "less is enough" approach are bound to make a massive change to a very monotonous market.

Let's hope it's the next Apple II ;-)

Not to ruin a good witch hunt or anything, but...

[Gordo_1]

a commenter claiming to be Mary Lou Jepsen has responded to a similar story on olpcnews.com:

Hi all,

Thanks for all the interest in my new company!

some comments:

1) My new company *is* trying to explore the concepts of open hardware - and trying to figure out the right way to do it. I've been asking many people for advice on this: Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen, Larry Lessig, John Gilmore, Brewster Kahle, etc. We are struggling through it. Hardware is different from software - but how can we open it up?

2) Doesn't anyone want a 50 Euro laptop? I do. I'm not talking about designing last years product for next year. Other people can do that..I plan to continue to innovate and invent.

3) Finally: I'm not taking my inventions from OLPC - I'm licensing them from OLPC. Why: An inventor has a good chance of improving the price/performance of her inventions. Why restrict her access to them if our goal is lower cost computing for the developing world?

Posted by: Mary Lou Jepsen on January 01, 2008

Re:Initial Reaction

[jc42]

My initial reaction was "What the hell, you theiving bastard stealing technology from a non-profit organization" ...

So have you read the news that the patent in question is owned by the OLPC project? The report that she's stealing something seems to be pure calumny. If anything, she's working on developing the parallel retail marketing that so many people have been suggesting. And if successful, her company will be paying license royalties to the OLPC project.

Does anyone know differently? It'd be interesting to get some more accurate information than what we've read here so far.

FTA

[vuffi_raa]

OLPC is also designing a cow-powered generator that works by hooking cattle up to a system of belts and pulleys. I understand the idea of giving these to developing countries, but I would hope that this gets applied to commercial industries as well- think if you hooked them up to treadmills and elipticals in gyms.....

Jepsen contributed her patents to OLPC

[Geof]

From what I heard, you're on the right track. Jepsen contributed her display patents to OLPC. She did a lot of important work for them. Criticizing her for going into business seems completely unfair. OLPC is a charitable organization, and is not permitted to compete in the market. For these technologies to take advantage of the market, they need to be developed by a business. This could be very good for them.