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Why Intel and OLPC Parted Ways
runamock writes "The New York Times has an article that sheds some light on why Intel left the OLPC board: 'A frail partnership between Intel and the One Laptop Per Child educational computing group was undone last month in part by an Intel saleswoman: She tried to persuade a Peruvian official to drop the country's commitment to buy a quarter-million of the organization's laptops in favor of Intel PCs. Intel and the group had a rocky relationship from the start in their short-lived effort to get inexpensive laptops into the hands of the world's poorest children. But the saleswoman's tactic was the final straw for Nicholas Negroponte.'"
If not for AMD, Intel would be the M$ of the processor market. Although I fully understand the benefits of a free market, etc., Intel's behavior regarding the OLPC is reprehensible. Instead of offering cut-rate chips to support the project and potentially gain goodwill and new loyal customers worldwide they took the low road.
Shame.
I have mod points. The reign of terror begins now.
Now regardless of who's making the machines and what OS, CPU blah blah they have in them, it's good that this device class actually exists and it's great that more people around the world get a chance to use devices that we take forgranted. OLPC and the Classmate are both doing a good job, and I'd love to see other devices like the EEE PC tailored towards developing nations in the near future.
I'm sure Intel is going to get lots of hate posts here. And most of that will be because a lot of people fail to see one important issue.
Intel is a for-profit corporation beholden to its stock holders...no profit, stock holders get pissed, executives get thrown out. OLPC is a non-profit that doesn't have to worry about making money, and in fact can lose money as needed...no one is looking for a profit.
The first reply I saw here made a comment about Intel throwing away good will by not selling OLPC chips at a big discount. Here's a news flash for you people...stock holders mostly don't give squat about good will. Good will does not increase the bottom line of their stock portfolio or give them a fat dividend check.
Intel is not a charity. AMD can work with OLPC because AMD is in second place and is willing to do anything to *be* Intel. Likewise, Negroponte (I've gotta put that guy's name in my spell checker), while his goals are commendable and I really do hope OLPC succeeds, is not being realistic as far as the business side of it goes in regards to Intel.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
I hope it's not really "the poorest children" that are getting the laptops. You can't eat a laptop. Give them to the second poorest.
What's the value of information that you don't know?
OLPC is a charity, not a business.
Intel is a business, not a charity.
(using the word "charity" to get the phrase going, there are of course better sounding ones)
I have to agree with the above poster. Intel is raking in $$$$$$ on their products and a little benevolence toward the groups that the OLPC is aimed for won't kill their bottom line one bit. Huzzah to Mr. Negroponte for sticking to his philosophy and not rolling over in the name of $$$. There are many for-profit companies that can use this as a valuable lesson in philanthropy. One problem is that there are so few people out there like Mr. Negroponte in the business world. One thing that my mum keeps telling me is that $DEITY keeps track of things like this. Long Live OLPC and benevolence.
-- Aetherburner
"In the company of wind, dust achieves great heights. In the company of rain, it's mud."
Expect to hear all the usual "Intel is a business" bullsh*t that always comes up.
What has to be remembered is that Google is a business, Red Hat is a business, News Corp is a business too, and yet none of them actively tried to sabotage the OLPC foundation they had contracted to be a part of. Somehow they can justify their participation to the stockholders, but Intel can't? Intel was acting competitively before they joined the OLPC foundation in July of last year. After that time they continued to do so, only now they had access to a lot more information about XO potential buyers. Their behavior was despicable and only further enforces my decision long ago to buy AMD processors exclusively.
Adding insult to injury, Intel holds a press conference call announcing the decision to split, without informing the OLPC board. Read through the stories from last Thursday. The olpc foundation had no response because they were shocked.
They recovered nicely in my view with this official response. http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Intel#INTEL_RESIGNS_FROM_OLPC
I hope Negroponte & company sues for breach of contract.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
The question is, why did Intel join the project to begin with ? It was obvious from the beginning that the only reason was to sabotage the project.
Just like M$'s OOXML, which has only one purpose, of derailing ODF.
"...a lot of people fail to see one important issue. Intel is a for-profit corporation beholden to its stock holders..."
Nah, they signed on to the board of directors of their own free will, and that comes with fiduciary duties.
If you can't execute your duties under an agreement, don't sign on to it. Period.
Yes, but lowering costs does improve the bottom line. How much of the Classmate's cost is software? Remember, Microsoft isn't a charity either. Intel has no reason to help Microsoft, they could make an Intel computer at a lower cost with 100% free software in it.
Besides the cost of software itself, no matter if it's $3 or $300, Linux runs on lower hardware specs than Microsoft products. The XO needs extra memory to run a version of MS-Windows, which means still more cost.
If your competitor has a signed order from a customer, you shouldn't try to sell in such a way as to break up the contract. You can bid for the next contract, of course.
TFA: "If I can sell 1.5 million computers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, I will feel a lot better than other sales we might make."
It seems that there is no need to characterize the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ethiopia might not be so much in focus, thus it might be interesting to give a quote: "The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration's war on terrorism.
A Christian-led nation in sub-Saharan Africa, surrounded almost entirely by Muslim states, Ethiopia has received nearly $20 million in U.S. military aid since late 2002. That's more than any country in the region except Djibouti.
Last month, thousands of Ethiopian troops invaded neighboring Somalia and helped overturn a fundamentalist Islamic government that the Bush administration said was supported by al-Qaeda.
The U.S. and Ethiopian militaries have "a close working relationship," Pentagon spokesman Lt. Cmdr. Joe Carpenter said. The ties include intelligence sharing, arms aid and training that gives the Ethiopians "the capacity to defend their borders and intercept terrorists and weapons of mass destruction," he said." (emphasis mine)
Am I the only one who feels that there is something strange about exactly this selection of countries as an intial target market?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Same here! Until now, I have never bought an Intel cpu and after crooky actions like this one it will stay that way. Obviously the only reason for Intel to join the OLPC platform was to screw with it.
Shame on you Intel!
I've never seen an Intel branded machine. I remember the crappy "Intel Inside" stickers, but I haven't seen a specific Intel machine. Wouldn't it piss off the OEMs? OK, I guess the Classmate PC is it.
Its not about Intel being a pro-pfofit buisness, it's about Intel trying to screw the OLPC project. There were complains before and Intel promised not to do it again.
Only by coincidence did the OLPC project find out that they were trying to do the exact same thing to the next big volume custumer.
You must have missed the bit in the article which said the peruvian government was interested in the classmate for secondary education older children and intel tried to sell it as a replacement for the olpc which was being bought for primary school children. Can you see the distinction it's not the same target audience.
Intel got greedy (or confused), if they had not chosen to go after the primary school market with the classmate and stuck with the secondary schools they two laptops would compliment each other. Instead they were trying to backstab the OLPC project.
Intel have behaved very badly, they would have had a lot of good will and sales if they hadn't been so crass.
You can only wonder if Intel did this to appease its biggest customer, Microsoft.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
I hear this "give food" talk a lot.
When you dump a lot of food into a depressed region, the farmers in that region can't sell a damn thing. They are driven out of their livelihood, further depressing the region.
Giving food keeps people in poverty. If you want to help.... give education. Give a cow. Give seeds. Give time and effort.
Dumping food on the poor doesn't help anyone.
-T
OLPC has helped to define a market (actually, it seems more like they discovered it, the more I read), and now when someone else sets up shop next door, they cry foul. There's room for Coke and Pepsi, McDonalds and Burger King, and Starbucks and the locals, why not in the third world?
Think of it this way: If a church has a homeless shelter, it is a good thing. If a businessman sees the chance to offer a flophouse for a few bucks a week, it is a bad thing. Either way, the homeless are off the streets at night, but because the businessman isn't doing it to get into heaven, but to make a buck or two, he's the worst kind of evil. But a profitable building is sustainable, a handout only lasts as long as the charitable continue to give.
The thing that I find interesting is that Negroponte keeps pointing out all the faults with the Intel box to the press, like superior technology is always a no-brainer. Maybe he just needs to become a better pitchman when he's meeting with these countries. Maybe these countries have a hard time justifying a purchase that until a few months ago was vaporware. Maybe there's more PCs in these countries than Negroponte thinks, and these countries want to make sure their kids are able to use them.
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
So basically they're a normal corporation, acting perfectly normally to create more value for its shareholders, eh?
I mean, just like, say, Sun during Scott McNealy's CEO days, going "we love Linux and OSS" in the morning and "Linux is teh suck! Die! Die! Die!" in the evening of the same day? Or like IBM showing up at Athlon launches and proclaiming its undying love for AMD, then spending 100 million on developping an Intel-only chipset that nearly negated the advantage of AMD's IMC and hypertransport? Or like AOL using Netscape to negotiate a big subsidy from MS, essentially a huge corporate bribe to use IE instead of Netscape, then suing MS for anti-competitive behaviour against Netscape? Etc.
Sad to say, that's just normal behaviour for corporations. Someone showing up at your product launches is more of a way for _them_ to be in the public's eye, than really meaning that they won't backstab you the next day.
What's normal for normal people, isn't normal at all for corporations and viceversa. If someone acted like a corporation and showed up to proclaim his undying friendship in the morning, then tried to lead a mob with torches and pitchforks to your home in the evening, chances are we'd put them in a mental institution. But conversely, if a corporation tried to stay your best friend even if it loses them money, the shareholders would want heads to roll.
To be entirely fair, though, it's also a mistake to see a corporation as one monolythic entity with only one brain. Just because department X thinks you're the best thing since sliced bread, doesn't mean that department Y won't try to backstab you. Sometimes even just because the manager of department X really just wants to undermine the manager of department Y.
In some cases they even backstab each other. See, for example, the sad story of OS/2. One department developed it as an alternative to paying the Windows tax to MS. Another department refused to ship IBM computers with OS/2 installed, because they could get a bigger discount on Windows if they're MS-only on the computers they sell.
Don't try to understand internal corporate politics, that-a-way lies madness of Lovecraft proportions.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
OLPC can blame itself... Comeon, letting Intel sit on it's board as a partner? It's like Colonel Sanders admintting a fox on it's board!!!!
Quite apart from being wrong (it's going to have some effect, for some slashdotters will be favouring AMD when all other things are near enough equal), your position is a little odd. Intel deserve criticism if they're doing wrong by the critic. Aren't all actors meant to be working in their own interests? Well, for some of us, our interests include the success of projects such as the OLPC. If you believe that "interest" necessarily means self-interest, you haven't studied your economics throughly. Supply and demand doesn't care about the cause of the motive, just its existance.
Wikileaks, no DNS
"Intel's behavior regarding the OLPC is reprehensible."
Intel employees I've met have gone further than that. They are saying that the management of Intel CEO Paul S. Otellini is reprehensible. They say he is socially unskilled. They are saying he creates dissension and reduces morale among Intel employees by creating adversarial situations.
Certainly Otellini's handling of the One Laptop Per Child initiative could not have been worse. It was as though he said to himself, "How can I get billions of dollars worth of free publicity for Intel, all negative?" Intel's actions have created the impression that Intel wants to kill acceptance of the OLPC so that it can kill the OLPC project and then raise prices on its own products.
Anyone thinking of buying an Intel consumer product should know that Intel had a consumer products division in 2001 and decided to close it: Intel axes its consumer electronics unit. Why? In my opinion, the Intel Consumer Products Division was extremely poorly managed.
Also, Intel's marketing has been incredibly poorly managed. At one point, Intel was trying to sell processors by giving away dolls. Typical reaction: "Could this be the end of the bunny ads? We sure as hell hope so..."
There is no evidence that I can see that Intel is managed better today. Here is an April 2006 example I found quickly: Intel's consumer fumbling, in which Intel is trying to sell products using an unpronounceable trademark.
In my experience, there are tons of people in the business world like Mr. Negroponte. We don't hear about them for two reasons. First, they tend to be small business owners. Second, they tend not to do heinous things. The news goes for interesting stories, which excludes the small fry doing something nice for someone else.
> It makes no sense for Intel to sell the OLPC laptop verses their own brand.
It does if you cast your mind back to why they joined the OLPC group in the first place.
> Negroponte is being unreasonable in expecting Intel to instruct its sales force to say "Oh, you are getting an OLPC, I will stop trying to sell my companies product."
Because Intel are a partner in the OLPC project, one would reasonably expect them not to actively work against the best interests of the OLPC project, i.e. by getting the contact info of OLPC customers and then trying to undercut the OLPC deal.
> Intel's best contribution to the project would be helping to design the 2nd generation machine.
I think Intel's best contribution is the one they have done, leave it. Next step : get out of the market.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
We have seen where for-profit business opposes people doing for free what they themselves would not do even for profit. Municipal WiFi is a classic and well-known example of this. These companies are not interested in building a WiFi infrastructure in a city because the profits would be to low or the initial investment too high for this to be attractive to them. And yet they will stop at nothing to prevent a city from taking the initiative upon itself to service its citizens.
In lesser-known areas, where state utilities commissions have allowed utilities providers (power and communications) to not develop a region, smaller, independent groups and coops have opted to fill in the need for their own profit and non-profit interests only to face opposition from the very utilities providers that refuse to service the areas themselves.
"The Electric Car" has been stopped and stalled many times by the opposition of big auto makers time and time again.
There are probably many other examples of established big business opposing small business in doing things that they themselves are unwilling or uninterested in doing... any come to mind? An under our "free market capitalist idealism" it's rather hard to imagine why big business would even care? It's because big business isn't interested in "free market capitalism." They want no competition of any kind and they want to charge as much money as they possibly can for their goods and services as possible.
These are really good examples of what big business is truly about. Every time you hear an argument about "free markets" being wielded by big business, I hope you consider what big business is truly all about.
(For example, the free market argument was given by Enron as the reason to remove or reduce government controls over the power industry and following that, every single state that allowed it suffered from ridiculously high power costs and even power shortages and irregularities in quality and delivery. The free market doesn't work EVERYWHERE and isn't the answer to EVERYTHING. And it certainly doesn't apply when there are human _needs_ at the consumer side of the counter. Utilities, food and medical care need heavy regulation to keep the nations of the world healthy and it's precisely the lack of strong enough regulation of the US medical industry is in the 'unaffordable' state it's in and before someone points to the US medical system as being the most advanced in the world, I hold it has nothing to do with the lack of regulation or the possibility of higher profits and everything to do with their exploitation of research done in public learning institutions... research not available to the public itself.)
May be, if this time a corporation will do some good to poor people e.g. in Venezuela, or, at least not obstruct a charity, people in the country will be more friendly to USA and this will reflect in oil prices? Or, may be, less will die or get unproductive because their addiction to cocaine from Colombia... You see what I mean?
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
In my experience, there are tons of people in the business world like Mr. Negroponte. We don't hear about them for two reasons. First, they tend to be small business owners. Second, they tend not to do heinous things. The news goes for interesting stories, which excludes the small fry doing something nice for someone else.
There is a third reason. They don't stay in business very long.Business is not based on good or evil but profit and loss. One should never expect business to do anything but maximize its profits. To control byuiness, one needs laws that make it profitable to do good and unprofitable to do evil. That means costs for business should include the externalities, such as production of greenhouse gases, now subsidized by government.
This article http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10472304 displays a very different, and more convincing, view of the OLPC failure than the ronpaulesque anti-corporate attitude in the comments here.
For the rest of them [the other 80%, or thereabouts], they'll just be using their OLPC laptops to download pr0n and text-message their meth dealers [or clients].
Or, in the case of the girls, to upload pr0n.
See the power consumption data for the laptop. It runs a 2W (versus 10-45W for a normal laptop) in normal mode and down to 0.3W-0.8W when in "e-book" mode. Running that against the battery data which reports 16.5-22Watt-hours gives a normal-usage of 8 to 11 hours, or e-book usage for 20-73 hours.
You can also get a pull-string charger for when there is no supply.
This isn't comparable to companies supplying old hardware as a goodwill gesture: the OLPC has been thought through and planned for these situations from the beginning.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
I seriously hope you are playing the role of the propaganda machine in a tongue and cheek game of words. IQ is also based on many things that have nothing to do with biology. Biology is a part, but even more important is environment (for comparisons within a species). If the parents do not have the knowledge or the mental acuity to provide the examples and challenges to help their children grow intellectually, it will probably not happen. Without some external source to the surroundings a child grows up in, the brain will develop to meet the level of its surroundings. Once in a while, a child may get lucky and something may trigger a more keen interest in developing, but not often. That is one of the best reasons for a functional public education system. These OLPC units will be a nice means of giving children a better chance at that.
Nature vs Nurture has been an argument for far too long with lines drawn in the sand that are too far in one direction or the other. Nature and Nurture work together. Read the Selfish Gene for more information.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
The author of the article should know better than to use flash as an example. Clueless article at best.
...a stunned silence fell upon the hall.
After reading your reference, and looking around for information on the source, I have to conclude that this is a joke that will fly over most peoples heads (you have to RTFA the referenced URL to see just how bad this data is). I do not disagree with the conclusions of the authors about the feedback loop between IQ(education) and poverty, but the way they have arrived at their conclusions undermines their own arguments.
I would love to be able to call your post +1 funny, but unfortunately, I believe your humor is as dry as mine, and therefore likely to be missed (it is humor, right?).
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
A simpler possible explanation exists ...
The saleswoman is based in Peru, and a member of the worldwide sales organization. The OLPC partnership is at a corporate level with some marketing or community entity within Intel.
Within Intel, one part (the OLPC liaison) is pro OLPC, seeing it as a growth opportunity, while another (the field sales organization) is anti OLPC because it eats up into their potential sales. I am sure they never talked to each other. Even if they did, corporate politics and turf wars may have ensued, with sales winning this round.
These two things are very common in large corporations (left hand does not know what the right hand does, and turf wars and power struggles between different organizations).
When Negroponte made this public, it was embarrassing to Intel, and eventually the money balance tipped the scale and they withdrew from the OLPC.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
As a stockholder, I'm happy that they are trying to earn money for me.
I hope you sleep well on your pile of blood money.
home
It's succinct and to the point. And while it doesn't get to the dirt like the news items
have been doing, it does spell out that Intel couldn't be bothered with working on the
project in an appropriate manner from start to finish and some of the other reasons this
whole thing went down the way it did.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The central crux being that one unit is crashing occasionally (why not ask for a replacement), and the author has a view that the OLPC folks can't take criticism (no examples cited). While I normally hold the Economist in the highest regard, this article is a poor botch job - and not of the quality of journalism that normally occupies their pages. Better to interview a kiddie who's received one and to get a real story - based on them using the software on the machine. The way it liberates the way kids learn is the real story to follow - not "I wanted a cheap replacement for my expensive PC".
That apart, it looks a classic case of a company wanting to be inside the tent pi**ing out, and outside the tent pi**ing in, both at the same time. These things don't normally mix too well...
Ian W.
I wish there were some way we could laugh at this looming catastrophe, but in about 15 or 20 years, it [the catastrophe] is going to rise up and swallow us:
So my advice would be to learn how to laugh at yourself [if you don't know how to already], because the remainder of your life is going to be one long, never-ending tragedy, and there isn't going to be anything funny about it at all.
I'm going to be the optimist, and go along with those who say that your post should be modded as 'funny'.
To paraphrase Master Yoda: Oh, you will be pessimistic, you will be:
Exactly how much additional profit do you expect to make? Intel are competing with a product that has no overhead... so I am struggling to understand *why* they would target such a market. And for the same reasons, I'll be suspicious that back-handers haven't [ahem] facilitated things if Peru do sign up with Intel.
Seriously, I understand the "Intel is a business" argument, but that doesn't mean it's A-okay to fsck people over like this.
Assuming you aren't as cold hearted to think profit at any cost is good, it might be worth asking what the business case is here. As I mentioned above, I can't see much scope for huge profit when competing against OLPC, which makes me think that the intent is actually to ensure a competing product doesn't get a foot-hold to allow it to affect Intel's profits in the future. The threat is unlikely to be OLPC competing in profitable markets, but more likely OLPC driving down margins. The *business* case for the latter would make sense (particularly if you have no conscience), but it *is* pretty low-life behaviour; it's preventing any competition in a similar way to Microsoft do in the OS/Office market to maintain position.
Bullshit.
There are lot of companies, which actually kinda see huge connection between doing good and getting profit. If it wasn't so, there won't be PR, there won't be ads, there won't be customer psyhology courses, Bs for different marketing types, etc. It is all connected and it comes back.
Problem is different. It is not ethical versus material. It is long term versus short term. It pays back to be good in long term, for sure. But in short term, sometimes it doesn't.
And it all boils down to "stupid" human survival instinct - it wants all now, it wants very strong guarantee now. Not tomorrow, not even after one hour. If human just acts, not thinks, it will choose short term survival as it's primary goal.
p.s. "stupid" in brackets means - I don't know how to solve it, it's natural and if people live like that, who am I to judge.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Reading this article made my blood boil. Intel very clearly acted in bad faith, and their actions against OLPC will no doubt result in poor kids being deprived of access to technology. Immediately, my thoughts turned to the business I've given Intel and whether I could ever buy from them again.
But my second, more constructive thought was "what can I do to help OLPC?" and I easily found two great answers.
1. Donate. For just $200, you can give an XO laptop to a child in a developing nation. It immediately makes a difference in the life of one child, and it's an opportunity for the XO to prove itself. Our donations no doubt will drive future sales for OLPC. Donations are entirely tax-deductible (Question: does anyone know they're tax-deductible for Canadians?).
2. Develop. If you're a programmer, you can donate some of your time and work on an XO Activity. There's already a pretty impressive array of available software, but there's lots of room for work, and this is one way that OLPC can really differentiate itself. Think about it: thousands of passionate hackers contributing quality free software, all targeted at this machine. That's something that Intel and Microsoft will never be able to compete with because no one else is ever going to be passionate about Classmate & Windows.
Let's make a difference!
Exactly.
No one else can sell laptops to third-world countries except OLPC. Intel has a more expensive and more feature-full laptop, and OLPC is afraid third-world countries might be lured into buying something like, you know, the kids in the developed world have access to - Windows and Mac PCs. Id the OLPC is the best for them, the third-world countries will buy them, if not, they'll buy what is - not what Mr. Negroponte has decided they need/want/deserve.
Ken
your attitude is indicative of the "fixed mind" thought that intelligence is immutable and therefore you are limited by how much knowledge one is capable of learning and understanding. This attitude serves to prevent less fortunate individuals with access to knowledge and learning because they are too stupid" to learn it. However, it could quite possibly be that there is no sch thing as a limit to what a human mind can learn, and by human mind I am including those person who by luck and misfortune happen to have been born in regions of the world where knowledge resources are traditionally restricted to the ruling elite. This theory is perhaps the pedagogical underpinigs which the OLPC is attempting to address. Give people access to learning, those who supply their own initiative will be able to rise far above the predetermined sociological status which has been handed them. You were lucky enough to e born in a relatively rich neighborhood and the sociological forces of your life have pushed you through school and resulted in your acquiring a specific amount of knowledge including the knowledge of how o acquire more knowledge. Despite this, you still demonstrate a specific arrogance which comes frm those who are completely unaware of how they have been granted a stroke of luck and believe that it is entirely under their own power that they have ended up in the position that they are currently in. Tables could very well have been turned and you could have been one of those "stupid" peasants.
For some reason my fountain pen doesn't work here.
Pure and utter nonsense! There is a very wide range between going bankrupt and making recordbreaking profits. A business only has to break even to stay in business (for the long term). Profits are good for growth and attracting investors, but you could also see them as bad forecasting skills: You have done best when you have spent and received as much as you had anticipated. If you end up with more money then planned then your could have invested more in growth etc...
This space is intentionally staring blankly at you
Because children in a third-world country really need to be able to run Quicken to be competitive in a global marketplace.
You don't think that they're in it just for the karma do you?
None of them stands to lose out if an AMD-powered machine becomes the de-facto standard in the developing world. Intel does - bigtime.
Google and Red Hat are arch-rivals of Microsoft and stand to benefit if Linux becomes the de-facto standard in the developing world. Intel owes a lot of its success to Windows' dependence on x86 processors, but Linux is pathologically multi-platform and opens the door to competition from ARM, PowerPC et. al.
Now, I'm not condoning what Intel has (allegedly) done - but it beggars belief that the OLPC people expected Intel to behave like boy scouts in the face of such a conflict of interests.
The OLPC project is a massive threat to the Intel/Microsoft near-monopoly, and like it or not OLPC are going to have to raise their hardball game to make it work.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
The real problem, as someone pointed out on Groklaw, is that Intel doesn't have a suitable CPU offering at the AMD Geode's price point.
...Intel's behavior regarding the OLPC is reprehensible. Instead of offering cut-rate chips to support the project and potentially gain goodwill and new loyal customers worldwide they took the low road. Reprehensible? I dunno, I prefer inevitable. OLPC is like an antelope that made a pact with a lion not to eat it. What's that you say, the lion is nipping at the heels of the antelope despite the pact?Frankly, I put the blame mostly on Negroponte for being so naive at business to think that this agreement could work in the first place. Do you really think that the CEO of a large multinational corporation has much control over his thousands strong sales team -- especially if he orders them *not* to compete? I've seen similar scenarios play out many times in the past. Sales people are hired to bring in deals and get fired when they don't hit their quotas. Their compensation schemes generally don't care how or where they get the deals from, so that's the bottom line, regardless of lofty declarations made by upper management.
Well said - the limitation of liability is a huge subsidy - think the public can expect corporations to act in the public interest.
before you call bullshit, I ask you: what is the goal of marketing/PR/ads/etc...? it's not to 'do good', it is to maximize profits, just as the parent poster said...
>Business is not based on good or evil but profit and loss. One should
... for any company.
>never expect business to do anything but maximize its profits.
Being on the board of a company means that you have accepted a duty of care for that company. Intel volunteered to accept such a duty with respect to OLPC. Intel failed in their duty to OLPC and even appear to have abused their position.
If the Intel board felt that meaningful membership of the OLPC board was not in Intel shareholders best interests they should have never signed up, but they did and they let OLPC down badly.
Perhaps the individual directors who took on the duty of care for OLPC on behalf of Intel have demonstrated that they are not up to the job of being a director
I thought this was pretty much a well accepted understanding of the interaction of business and the law. The responses to your post are sad. I guess I should expect as much, given how few people seem to understand that antitrust law does exactly that... attempt to make it illegal and a financial liability to undermine competition in a way that hurts consumers and progress. It is amazing how many people seem to think that companies deserve inherent rights, but should not have corresponding responsibilities.
But which in the long run is easier and cheaper to build and maintain?
Which is more likely to attract developers, run the most software? The mass-market laptop built with off-the-shelf parts or the customized OLPC?
"The Economist" had some tough words for OLPC and Negroponte last week:
First, the implementation...is terrible. In their zeal to rewrite the rules of computing for first-time users, OLPC shipped machines with a cumbersome operating system. ... Major PC vendors spend millions in research and development to enhance a computer's usability; OLPC tried to reinvent the wheel and came up with an oval.
Second, the go-to-market execution...was imperfect. There was a lack of documentation, support and methods to integrate the PCs into school curricula, teacher training, and the like. OLPC seemed to think that just by handing out laptops, everything would sort itself out. ...[The] consumer is not the nine-year-old user with infinite time on her hands, but a government bureaucrat who has to evaluate the machines relative to other options.
Since the project launched in 2005, commercial rivals have emerged: Intel's "Classmate" at around $250; Acer's laptop at $350; Everex PCs with Zonbu software at around $280; Asustek Computer's Asus Eee at under $400; and an Indian competitor, Novatium Solutions, which created a basic "NetPC" for around $80. There are many more.
OLPC initially treated all these activities as threats rather than competitors. ... But all computer buyers will have to compare the XP to a lot of other products in the market--something that never seemed to have struck OLPC's staffers as a possibility, but should have.
This leads to the final problem that has done the most to disappoint OLPC's fans: the hubris, arrogance and occasional self-righteousness of OLPC workers. They treated all criticism as enemy fire to be deflected and quashed rather than considered and possibly taken on board. Overcoming this will be essential if the project is to succeed past its first release. ... The OLPC staff will need to learn to listen to the candid criticism of outsiders for the second-generation of the laptop--or they do not deserve to build one.
Ultimately the OLPC initiative will be remembered less for what it produced than the products it spawned. The initiative is like running the four-minute mile: no one could do it, until someone actually did it. Then many people did. One clunky laptop per child
I can't tell whether you're being sarcastic.
If you are seriously curious about the looming disaster which is dysgenic fertility, then I can give you enough links to contemplate for a month [or more], but it would take me some time to put it all together, and I don't want to waste all that time if you're being sarcastic.
Of course, even if you are being sarcastic, the tautological certitude of dysgenic fertility will have wiped the grin off your face in another 15 or 20 years - that I can guarantee you.
Some companies really do want to change the world. A more educated prosperous 3rd world benefits us all. Sure maybe a 3rd world using linux doesn't help MS, but it doesn't preclude them from competing either.
In the eyes of MS and Intel, they can only prosper by continuing the dependence on their technologies and preventing anyone else's. Before this project neither had any interest in the target countries.
Now, I'm not condoning what Intel has (allegedly) done
Who is it you don't believe here, the Peruvian minister of education, the wall street journal, New York Times, BBC, or Professor Negroponte?
There is no alleged. The record is clear, before, during and after they joined the foundation. Intel has acted to sabotage the OLPC project from day one. They were promised to deliver a new XO prototype at CES this week, along with another 6 million in cash. Funny, 4 days before the event and right after OLPC recieved the notes from Peru they bolted.
The OLPC project is a massive threat to the Intel/Microsoft near-monopoly, and like it or not OLPC are going to have to raise their hardball game to make it work.
Nope, hardball is not required, Honesty is. OLPC threatens no one. Neither Microsoft nor Intel can afford to do what Negroponte proposes, at least according to them.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Wait a second - I don't understand the particularities of the intel/MS agreement (why is an Intel rep pushing MS products only in their computers? Intel can run anything), but at least from the MS perspective, they're aiming for the long-term: they're attempting to wean unsuspecting children on MS products. Once "endoctrinated" in a certain product, and the majority of other users are using the same, people are usually loathe to change... MS knows this perfectly well.
Intel's participation in this project would seem entirely against its very goals: 1) the laptops are not as cheap as other possibilities and 2) they only have their own interests at heart - not the children's, poor or not; in addition of their ability to impose "choice" on its citizens, government is a large source of quick cash for them - nothing more.
No, no sig. Really.
ThePromenader
No one else can sell laptops to third-world countries except OLPC.
Negroponte is attempting to address an under-served primary education market with his vision of what would give that market the most bang for its buck. After watching the OLPC program develop that market, Intel threw together a low spec system to milk some of the action and create some future up-sell opportunities. Fair enough.
If Intel wasn't willing to modify its game plan, then they shouldn't have joined the OLPC's board. If Intel thought that they were going to talk the OLPC into dropping everything and becoming Intel's Classmate marketing arm, Intel was -to be charitable - naive.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Think again.
The third world kid shouldn't have to open a terminal window in Linux to install anything.
He shouldn't be asked to jump through hoops that anyone using Windows, OSX, Ubuntu or Linspire will never see.
Cut-and-paste should "just work."
Plug-ins like Flash are in use everywhere. You lose credibility pretending otherwise,
The amount of AC intel shills is impressive.
Of limited use here really, if you were not ACs you might know why.
Nope.
I already have said many times that Microsoft long time planning is overestimated. Nevertheless, with long term in my post I meant "long term profit". Microsoft wants huge profits as soon as possible. Therefore unfinished products, "good enough" attitude, total control of their "precious intellectual property" like file formats, etc. indicates that they are very short tempered and actually aren't that smart. However, they are very convinced about their truth and they believe in power of mighty dollar - so they simply buy everything. They buy PR companies, they buy journalists, they spend money like crazy. It is short term thinking, because lot of people have already became immune to such attitude. In long term, Microsoft is bound to damage itself seriously with such attitude.
And if we are talking about Intel, they deserve bad press they get - AMD, RedHat, Quanta are also corps and not so small ones. However, they don't act so arrogantly as Intel does in this case.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
I think you're actually agreeing with the parent post. To the degree that companies do good, it's because they think it will somehow maximize their (NPV) profit. Ethics has nothing to do with it. If breaking laws and chopping up grandmas will lead to profit, they'll do that, too.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Hey, fuck you buddy. The former CTO of the OLPC, Mary Lou Jepsen, created the innovative display technology of the XO laptop. Why must "geek" and "woman" be mutually exclusive to you?
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
What he's saying is that good ethics do in fact lead to increased profit, over the long term. Ethics as plenty to do with it. Breaking laws and chopping up grandmas could lead to short-term gain but inevitably will lead to losses by those who are upset by such actions. While the situation is vastly simpler, game theory's prisoner dilemma, in a sense, mathematically proves this (so long as the population is sufficiently mixed in good/evil, as it is in reality). X company does good for me I'll reciprocate it and back them further; visa versa for Y company which managed to piss me off. It's not that complicated of a concept; the reason it isn't more wide-spread is the short-term thinking that's sadly prevalent today.
"A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
"Intel is a business" has absolutely nothing to do with this. If I were to volunteer my time and services to a church program to help feed the homeless, but then actively stole food from the program then I would not be surprised to find a group of angry people at my doorstep brandishing torches and pitchforks. Intel has just done the same thing and I see some folks here actually defending these fools! I used to think there was a special place in Hell reserved just for Microsoft thanks to the usually less-than-ethical business tactics they love to employ; but now it looks as if Intel wants a piece of that eternal real estate for themselves as well.
This space for rent!
Its even more valuable when it comes with a big juicy side-order of enlightened self-interest.
I'm glad that you have personally read all of the articles, double-checked the citations and cross-examined the people concerned. Pretty impressive, since that'll probably take years if the matter ever goes to court. Or maybe you were in the Peruvian minister's office and personally witnessed the Intel rep bad-mouthing the OLPC? I was referring to third-hand information that I couldn't personally substaniate so "allegedly" it is. I suggest you invest in a dictionary and satisfy yourself that "allegedly" does not mean "liar liar, pants on fire!"
PS: You believe everything the BBC and WSJ say? Good luck.
Sorry, you don't think that millions of children in the developing world growing up using (and possibly learning to program) Linux on an AMD-powered system could be even a teensy-weensy threat to MS or Intel?
Probably because when a for-profit company distributes vast quantities of product below cost in an emerging market, it's called "dumping" and is generally frowned upon - especially if its being done by a monopoly player. Now, it may be legal for a charitable foundation to do that but they shouldn't act all surprised if the industry gets jittery about it.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
The fallacy in this argument is the assumption that all the children who receive these laptops will have a low IQ. It's Not called OLPSC. This is a reduction of a greater fallacy that assumes that just because people live in a Developing Nation they are stupid. It is statistically improbable that _all_ the children in a country's population have an IQ less than 90, I'd even wager that it would be also very unlikely that _all_ the children in a developing country have an IQ less than 140. It only takes one exception for that to be broken.[This all assumes that the IQ measurement is localized in order that it need not be a in a non native tongue. You'd probably fair quite miserably on an IQ test that was in Farsi.]
For some reason my fountain pen doesn't work here.
i don't find it amazing but rather encouraging. the olpc is an educational project aiming to help third-world countries to free themselves from the continuing problems caused by the oppression through the first world. it's really quite heart-warming to see the position of the average slashdotter.
What exactly is the wrongdoing here? An Intel salesman (actually saleswoman) had a meeting with a potential buyer to convince them to buy Intel's product instead of the competitor's product.
That Intel was partnering with OLPC does not mean that Intel has stopped competing with OLPC. It looks more like Mr. Negroponte wants to carve out a market niche with zero competition. That just isn't going to happen.
Here's a very simple example: Apple partnered with Microsoft to ensure Microsoft would release Office for the first few versions of Mac OS X. Then Apple started marketing the Mac OS X platform as a competitor to Windows PCs. Yet Microsoft still makes Office for Mac and is about to release an updated version. Microsoft is still loosely partnered with Apple. It's just good business.
Who do you think is going to teach the children to read smartass?
Their school, you idiot. Just because someone somewhere is worse off than the kids who can use this to make a better life for themselves and their whole community is no reason not to help them too.So if you think that the little dirt children are so needy that no other charity should exist to apply to anything beyond basic day-to-day survival, why don't you shut the fuck up, log off the internet, and go help them. Because bitching and moanoing about another layer of help won't feed anyone, hypocrite.
You can't take the sky from me...
Well, more power to him if he can survive on that kind of ideals, but the fact is: the business world doesn't work like that. Corporations are pretty much _supposed_ to do that. If they can make more bucks for their shareholders, the same company is _supposed_ to simultaneously try to sell you some chips (undercutting some other potential supplier) and then go and try to undercut the computers you make with those chips.
If you look at some of the major players, they're doing it all the time.
E.g., IBM goes and partners with AMD and sells them some fab capacity, then goes and sells and promotes computers with Intel CPUs. Then it goes and tries to get people to buy its own Power blades and mainframes instead of stuff from either AMD or Intel. Basically it actively advertises, and sends salesmen to companies, to hammer in the message, "buy our own super-duper Power stuff, PCs aren't any good as servers."
E.g., Oracle goes and partners with IBM, and appears on stage at launches and proclaims its undying love for IBM platforms, then goes and advertises, "don't buy DB/2, buy an Oracle database. Look in how many ways DB/2 sucks compared to our database in the latest benchmarks. Oh, and while you're at it, buy our own application server instead of WebSphere. And BTW, our benchmark was on cheap commodity PCs too, not on those sucky expensive IBM things."
E.g., the same Oracle goes and plays Red Hat's best buddy and all committed to that platform, then comes and tries to steal Red Hat's Linux support business. You know, get Red Hat's work in putting together that distro for free, but don't repay them with a support contract. Come get your support from us instead.
Etc.
_That_ is how the business world works.
Again, I realize that if a physical person did the same, they'd lose all their friends and maybe end up in a mental hospital. But companies actually do that all the time, and their investors expect them to act like that.
If you have moral objections to that kind of behaviour, good, try to have the laws changed. But in the meantime it's naive of Negroponte to expect that if Intel does some business with him, then Intel is his faithful and loyal serf for eternity. _If_ he actually expects that.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This meltdown was caused specifically because an Intel salesperson (inevitably) found themself in conflict with OLPC's interests. In contrast, OLPC actually serves Google's, Red Hat's, and News Corp's corporate interests.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
The G1G1 program raised 33 million which implies around 150,000 laptops ordered. Quanta won;t be able to supply them all until the end of January.
The production lines are not sitting idle at all.
"What happened was that Intel were on the the board of OLPC (a
non-profit organisation) whilst at the same time trying to undermine
done deals made by OLPC"
http://openskills.blogspot.com/2008/01/intel-does-dirty-to-olpc.html
> Rather, it will turn a child with an IQ of 90 into a child with an IQ of 90
> who was handed a laptop on a silver platter [i.e. who didn't even have to
> work to earn the laptop in the first place].
Nutrition and shelter come first. The governments _buying_ this laptop are meant to ensure that.
Environment and IQ:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ#Environment
So those kids should work their childhood away to 'earn' that laptop... as if you earned what you got as a kid, hypocrite!
The reason it's stupid is that those "guarantees" of short term profit are generally more illusion than reality. It's a lot like you're average black-jack addict's guaranteed methods.
Way too much of modern business education is focused more on the gamble than on the ultimate stakes.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Well, your point that evil occurs in lots of places is a point, I suppose.
... . Which probably means there were groups in the sales staff who got together at the nearest Starbucks after the official meetings and said, in a panic, "OH NOES! MY NEXT PAYCHECK MIGHT BE REDUCED 5%! SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT THIS!"
But have you considered that what you're suggesting might be actually worse?
The guy at the top of iNTEL seems to be, actually, a pretty decent guy (at least, compared to either Gates or Ballmer). Negroponte actually said at one point that part of the problem is that Otellini doesn't seem to be able to control his own organization because it's too large.
Okay, so Otellini probably didn't send the memo down to crush OLPC. But you have loose cannons on the sales staff using iNTEL resources to go out and do what was done in Peru, India, Mongolia, Nigeria,
That kind of mutiny does not bode well for iNTEL's future.
It also points out to us where the ultimate blame for Micro$oft lies.
With us.
We bought the kool-aid, or we were too apathetic when our friends said, "Come on, you can't buck the trends. Use VB/C/S. Use MSWord. Use MSExcel. Everyone is doing it."
If you bought an XBox or use an MSWindwsCE PDA, you're still part of the problem.
If you buy a Dell with an iNTEL processor, you're part of the problem.
Until Apple starts using non-iNTEL processors again, you're part of the problem even if you buy Apple's current hardware. Not saying they have to do a bipolar switch again, just that there is no reason not to use CPUs from multiple vendors (even disparate CPUs, look at what is in iPhone) unless iNTEL is giving special, unmentioned price breaks for the deal.
No, this is not mixing politics with business, not in the sense in which it is bad to mix politics with business. This is long-term survival.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I believe that you're conflating public perception of a company being "good" with that company actually doing good. Actually doing good is surely an effective way of getting the public to perceive you as good, but it's certainly not the only way. If everyone followed that approach, marketing and PR etc. would be a much much smaller industry. And it's only the public perception of the company being "good" that can assist with profits. You can pump mountains of toxic waste into the river systems all you want, but if you can keep it secret and promote your company as being "Clean and Green" you'll still get the dollars from environmentally conscious consumers.
Google's "Do No Evil" motto is a great example of an effective PR campaign creating the perception of a good company. We wouldn't normally think that a for-profit, publically listed company could do anything but seek to maximise its profits in the short term. Yet every time there's a story about Google doing something less-than-saintly, it spawns a lot of discussion about whether or not it's really, actually evil, or whether it's just a teeny bit evil and therefore okay compared to what some other companies are doing, etc.; because lots of people actually believe (or want to believe?) that Google really doesn't Do Evil.
Now, this "Do No Evil" thing is really important as a long-term approach to PR for Google; back when they were just a new search engine, most people didn't really care. Now with them hosting people's email, performing all their search, functioning as their news aggregation service etc., it's really important people trust them. But back then, the idea probably was just aimed at short-term gain: it gave everyone a warm fuzzy feeling that this new upstart with the funny name was a different kind of company.
Your main point is that most companies (and individuals) are often only capable of effectively acting on short term goals. I agree with that. Your sub-point that it pays for companies to be good (at least in the long term) isn't the whole story, because what pays is for people to think the company does good. It's likely that for smaller businesses, the easiest way to achieve that perception is to actually do good. For larger companies that can afford to spend the money on PR, it's usually easier to opt for the smoke and mirrors approach. The ability to use deception of course feeds into the short-term actions: once you've done evil, it becomes beneficial in the short-term to spend money to fix the company's image. More far-sighted companies may even be clever enough to spend money promoting themselves as good while they do evil.
And it all boils down to "stupid" human survival instinct - it wants all now, it wants very strong guarantee now. Not tomorrow, not even after one hour. If human just acts, not thinks, it will choose short term survival as it's primary goal.
Also illustrated so well with all of the college grads out there asking if you want to have fries with that.
Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It's already tomorrow in Australia. - Charles M. Schulz
All I see is the same retarded troll comments whenever the OLPC is mentioned..
- Donate food to the mud hut, living in faeces people, not laptops
- Don't give them dinky laptops, they need 2 ghz beasts to play BF2. It's going to suck.
- Waste of money . I should have the right to tell the government what to spend their money on.
- It runs Linux, it's going to crash. These people need a serious OS like Windows XP.
None of these are insightful and repeating them in every article doesn't make your point more relevant.
Kind of hard to steal this one.
Shoot, the OLPC is just sitting there begging to be taken, and the licenses say go ahead. How hard can it be to put in a different CPU?
Unless iNTEL is so focused on high-end that it's going to take them months to build a real competitor in the ultra-low power range? In which case, there's no real PR loss if they admit it up front, start a project for the low-power product, and get a proof-of-concept out that, sure, takes too much power, but shows they are willing to do it.
(Part of the problem might be that, in order to produce a CPU that efficient at the low end in a reasonable time frame, they might have faced the decision between stealing AMDs engineers or going cap-in-hand to AMD for the tech again.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
In fact, you are a scared pessimist.
This world has been "one long tragedy" from the outset. People still seem to be able to find happiness in it if they try.
Read up on what the ancient Greeks called comedy and tragedy for a little perspective.
PS: You are a minority, too.
Either you are a unique individual with unique talents, which makes you, hey, unique, and thus a minority of one,
or you buy that us vs. them kool-aid, in which case, the "us" is always finding that there are more of "them" to be afraid of.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
"Supposed to" is somewhat overstating the position — firms need to weigh lots of criteria when making strategic decisions, and near-term financial gain is only one such criterion, albeit an important one.
That being said, you're missing the point when you say:
No, it's naive of Intel to think that Negroponte isn't going to come out guns a-blazin' when Intel "quits" OLPC over the Classmate issue. From several articles on this subject, it's clear that Negroponte was pissed as hell at Intel for quite some time. Heck, I remember him lambasting them and Microsoft on _60 Minutes_, and that was a month or two ago, and I seem to recall a presentation he gave at MIT talking trash at them back in late summer 2007. There probably wasn't an expedient means of kicking Intel out of OLPC, so he had to put up with them and their double-talk. Now that they've quit, he's probably happier, except for this short-term negative buzz.
After all, based on your analysis, it's not like Intel was going to be holding back any on the Classmate when they were in OLPC. So why should Negroponte be feeding Intel key...ummm...intel as an OLPC insider if they're going to use that information against OLPC?
And, going back the post I originally replied to, smacking down Intel doesn't mean Negroponte thinks he's supposed to have a monopoly, just that he's doesn't want to put up with a partner competing against him. Now he doesn't have to.
Besides, even if his claims against Intel are unfounded, making unfounded claims against competitors is what businesses are "supposed to do", right?
The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development
replying to him serves to bring out the ludicrousness of his position
This is Merriam-Webster on "ludicrous":
Now you might get away with calling me "eccentric" [although I doubt that, in their heart of hearts, most people would call me even that], but would you kindly point towards any single item which I have posted which is factually FALSE?
Thanks!
There was a guy in France who ate a whole bicycle. He powdered it and mixed it into his food for a year.
The laptop is RoHS-compliant, so you don't have to worry about toxic stuff like mercury and lead.
Just Eat It.
How is it that so many supposedly successful businesspersons seem to so readily forget that a little charity on a regular basis is necessary to keep the free market from imploding?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Business is not based on good or evil but profit and loss. One should never expect business to do anything but maximize its profits. To control byuiness, one needs laws that make it profitable to do good and unprofitable to do evil. That means costs for business should include the externalities, such as production of greenhouse gases, now subsidized by government.
While it is true that a for-profit business is #1 in it for the profit, we cannot assume that business does not do a lot of good locally and worldwide, because it very much does. To use the figure from Adam Smith most everyone knows, although we (business) will have self-interest, the invisible hand will still make sure that good is performed.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
People are totally forgetting or missing how Negroponte has been misleading people. This is all about supporting MIT groups instead of kids. He oversold this as a $100 laptop with lots of MIT tech and totally missed it. Now he's pissed about competition. Competition here is a *good* moral thing if we are talking about getting cheap laptops to kids. What should be happening is low cost screen tech going out to many laptops and Also what obligations did Intel not meet? I read the Negroponte interview and he's claiming software, not hardware, deliverables and didn't even state what these are. It's all name trashing to me until I see the details.
I thought the purpose of PR is to make company looks good enough as to maximize the ratio between (additionalprofit)/(PRcost)
If you delay pleasure infinitely, the pleasure will be infinite. (YM)
yo, dud, shut the heck up since you don't know what you're talking about. The OLPC device is being sold at something like $1 over cost and that $1 is for management overhead to keep the project going. And to top it off, what really pissed them off was when Microsoft and Intel started the Classmate PC project and immediately started publicly attacking it. They didn't come out and say how great their product was, they came out putting down the non-profit device. And the final straw was when Intel joined the OLPC board and agreed to not attack the project or its customers. What continued to happen was Peru compared the Classmate PC and OLPC devices for primary school kids and the OLPC project won. Peru then asked Intel to bid on a laptop for secondary school but Intel came back with another bid and attempt to get the OLPC primary school contract. The Intel moron didn't go for the money and bid on the next job, she went after the existing deal with the OLPC device. Sure seems like some kind of attempt to specifically target the success of the OLPC project and NOT about making money.
All the actions of Microsoft and Intel from day one of the OLPC announcements show that they are only out to kill off that project. Those who have been following this for a few years now are really pissed to see these two massive corporations continue attacking the OLPC project. Neither have shown any interests in profits and only showing acts to destroy the project. The typical anti-competitive behavior these two companies have shown for 20 years but now, it's being directed at a non-profit designed to help children. This is despicable. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
The most successful businesses take a long term view. And taking a long term view means understanding the value of good will.
One thing Intel's underhanded move did was make them look sleazy. You can bet that it will affect their bottom line negatively. I, for one, won't buy an Intel processor. And think of the thousands and potentially millions of people whose first computer will have an AMD processor in it. They are likely to stick with AMD.
Those short-term profit-maximizers will be gone tomorrow with perhaps the CEO and a few others bailing with a golden parachute, but the long term thinkers will still be around.
atleast the XO can take getting wet. There are quite a few other 'features' the XO has which were specifically designed for rural use by children and the Classmate PC has none of these. Talk about a fish out of water. Why else would Intel and Microsoft have to resort to such underhanded deals? I mean just look at the Nigerian Classmate PC deal. They originally found Linux/OSS fit their needs the best and ordered thousands with Linux. Microsoft came in and must have paid someone off because it wasn't too long before it was found that a deal was struck and the Classmate PC's would be shipped with Linux but get wiped and replaced with Windows and Microsoft software once they arrived. Intel doesn't seem to have this kind of hatred or fear of Linux but Microsoft sure shows they seem to. This is what makes me believe that the Intel sales rep who was asked to bid on the secondary school laptop but instead went back and tried to get the OLPC/primary school deal again...well, it looks to me like she was more motivated to terminate the OLPC/Linux deal. After all, she had a far far better chance of getting the secondary school deal since the XO is designed for primary school kids. So the writing is on the wall as to who is behind this, how badly the want not to compete but to terminate the OLPC project. And there's alot of upset people here who have seen these things over the years and are pissed. It ain't about competition.
Oh crap, I just noticed it's another AC blowing smoke out there ass...crap.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
It is you guys bitching and moaning about such an evil company that doesn't want to donate anymore laptops to poor children; they are such assholes, on my God!.
They're trying to stop someone else from giving laptops to needy children, you idiot.They saw how much money was being moved to make it happen, and they want that money.
You can't take the sky from me...
As for the rest of your comments. I'm glad that you have personally read all of the articles, double-checked the citations
As I mentioned previously, I wrote an article on this topic, unlike a slew of bloggers & new media Journalists, I actually do research. Did I speak with the Peruvian minister? No. Did I speak with Negroponte? No. Did Speak with Intel? No.
See they have these nifty little things called press conferences. Designed to give their point of view as much positive spin as possible. Read them. Come to your own conclusions. If you can come up with a reading of the 35 or so articles covering the events just on Thursday that show Intel acting in good faith, you need reading comprehension lessons. A preponderance of the evidence is all that I require, You see, I am not a judge, and the only court I am interested in is the court of public opinion. In that court Intel is Guilty PERIOD.
Still not convinced?, Go back and read a few of the Hundreds of articles covering the span of this saga. Here read the one linked on this page. http://www.classmatepc.com/ Its my favorite. Funny, they don't link to press accounts of them ditching OLPC.
Sorry, you don't think that millions of children in the developing world growing up using (and possibly learning to program) Linux on an AMD-powered system could be even a teensy-weensy threat to MS or Intel?
Ridiculous to say it threatens Intel. Those kids may be Linux kids, Linux doesn't run on Intel anymore? I suppose if we gave them all cell phones it would be a threat to Intel because they contained ARMs. Windows, F*ck em.
Millions of kids will be potential customers to both companies, where before they'd have been lucky to ever see a computer let alone grow up using them. Sounds beneficial to me. But If you look only at the short term, OMG we aren't selling those, I could see how you could delude yourself.
Look at it this way, If OLPC dies due to these two maniacal corporation' shenanigans. What are the odds that they will continue the effort to get these 3rd world countries into the 21st century. Yeah, exactly zero chance. The classmate PC is not a product, it is a blunt weapon used to kill the OLPC, and as soon as it becomes unnecessary Intel will drop it like a nuclear potato.
Lastly, Do I believe everything I read from the WSJ or BBC? Not necessarily, unless it is corroborated by company press releases, project PR, and 50 other reputable news sources. You have some reason for doubting this particular story, I'd love to hear it.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
The most striking thing about the intel / OLPC story is the naming of the culprit as a "saleswoman". I am not a female . . . and am in fact a male with pretty strong attitudes about modern women. I would assert that the sex of the salesperson who put on the pressure for Intel is totally irrelevant to the core story and the naming of the sex of the "culprit" is very sexist. I'll go farther and say that, judging by the media's coverage of "that woman" who is running for president of the US, that sex trumps race or creed for biggest boogeyman of 2008. Bob Kiger Videography Lab www.videographyblog.com/ages.html
NN has always been an egomaniacal blowhard. His old prognostications in the first years of Wired read like a better pedigreed Dvorak.
Now he heads out into the real world, gets spanked, and whines to the press that He could have been a Success if others didn't spoil his Grand Dream.
OLPC has been plagued by missteps from the start.
The resulting XO is an ugly, no fun, poorly designed piece of junk that would be made more useful by smashing it with a rock to use the sharp bits to peel potatoes.
Intel did Negroponte a great favor by giving him a point of blame for OLPC's failure this early in the project. He's indeed doing just that.
Your description of human nature's operation is precisely what has propelled our species through its evolution, arriving at a point where we're having this conversation over a globally interconnected communications grid using computing devices that may very well outperform human intelligence in our lifetimes. You may not like it, but it's the reason you exist in the first place. Until this things called "economic scarcity" doesn't exist anymore, this is the process that will continue to drive mankind.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
Company that don't do good as part of their corporate objectives eventually stop turning a profit.
History is littered with the carcasses of companies that were unethical, immoral or plain evil.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Some of the fun things from there:
Intel prohibits bribes and kickbacks. Intel employees may not offer or accept a bribe or a kickback. Bribes and kickbacks are prohibited either directly or through a third party.
At Intel, corporate responsibility means doing what is right. Respecting people and the world around us. Its how we do business.
Ah, PR is a funny beast.
Where in the mission statement of Intel says that they have to be immoral assholes in order to turn a profit?
/. seem to think this need to make a profit is legally enshrined somewhere. Well, it isn't. So stop the meme.
Many folks around here in
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Well I wasn't trying to defend Intel, not even using their products. But it really seems that by the time this project finalized, industrials have proposed better commercial solutions. Of course there was the prospect of addressing it to children. But any government can still buy 1 million of cheaper and better computers for their children, so that's the problem I see for the OLPC. The idea is great, and I like TED videos too.
Good for you. If, consequently, you feel confident in reporting Intel's actions as unchallenged fact then that's your decision. I don't.
Lets get this straight: I have never suggested that the story is false - please learn the difference between the words "allegation" and "lie". If I seriously thought the allegations were false then, rest assured, I'd be pointing you at the evidence.
One reason for the lack of serious competition to Intel in the PC market is that Windows is tightly tied to the x86 processor and the "IBM PC" architecture. Anybody wanting to compete with Intel in a Windows-dominated world is pretty much stuck with incremental improvements on the x86 design. Linux runs fine on Intel, yes, but unlike Windows it also runs fine on ARM, PowerPC etc.
Yes, I think that the prospect of flooding an emerging market with Brand X would generally be seen as a threat by the manufacturers of Brand Y. Don't you?
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
>>There is a third reason. They don't stay in business very long. Well, since I fall squarely into the "small business" catagory, will put in my 2 cents: Do I make *all* the profit I *possibly* could with how I choose to run things? No doubt - I give up a tangible percentage of real and potential profit. How? By paying for 8 hours a month that every employee is required to do some form of 'community service' It is part of thier job description. By making free Internet access available at two local venues for, well basically any form of charity/benevolent or commuity service event held there. By working with the senior center (where several volunteer thier time) to provide machines, access, programs, printers, monitors suitable for the folks that live there. (I love those waterproof keyboards!) This is but an example, and I am happy to say I am not the only one I know of that has decided to work in this manner. Sure - I get rewards, and I *definitely* get business from it on occasions. But the thing that pays me back dividends constantly that I get from all this? Loyalty. 'nuff said. (btw - have been going now for 5 years. No offense, but hope to continue to prove the above statement false, at least in my case.
I report the story just like everybody else. I personally believe it. This is a forum for opinions, last time I checked. I have no "Alleged" opinions on this story. Anybody wanting to compete with Intel in a Windows-dominated world is pretty much stuck with incremental improvements on the x86 design. Linux runs fine on Intel, yes, but unlike Windows it also runs fine on ARM, PowerPC
Exactly, a Windows dominated world, Is it a stated goal of Intel's board to support? Seems to me every new Mac off the production line has a brand new spanking Intel processor in it. Not to mention that the AMD Geode processor used by the OLPC is x86 architecture not ARM, not PowerPC. If Intel wanted to compete, come forward with a cheaper chip. Intel contributes quite alot to the Linux world and it is strange you think they are frightened of it's adoption.
You make a great case for why Microsoft to be against the OLPC, but no real reason why Intel should.
I think that the prospect of flooding an emerging market with Brand X would generally be seen as a threat by the manufacturers of Brand Y. Don't you?
No not really. The threat in my eyes would be Brand Y in this case AMD, not OLPC. Best way to eliminate it. Better chip at a lower cost. Guess that wasn't as easy as stabbing your partner in the back. OLPC single handedly created this "emerging market".
Interesting Conversation.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
they are as harmful as pests.
intel lost big publicity in this one.
Read radical news here
But put it this way.. the 'nicer' companies are more likely to care about the customer and spawn a loyal customer base. That company could eventually just turn into another company trying to eek every last little bit of profit, and end up losing what made them popular in the first place (IMO Dell did that when they outsourced their customer service to India, the support went way downhill from what I was used to). Thankfully doing good can coincide with what is good for business sometimes.. I would even pay a premium to do business with a company that I know had a 'human' aspect to it, justifying the extra cost, rather than just giving my money to a pure corporate money making machine.
which is totally what she said
Prior to this revelation, all my comparisons of the products of AMD and Intel have been based on engineering factors, despite a personal grudge that I have had against Intel, which I have disregarded as it is PERSONAL. Now, I have a corporate image perception in which the dial has moved to the "evil" end of the scale. Sadly for Intel, engineering matters will no longer be the sole basis for my purchase decisions. OTOH I've recently purchased another 3-pack of xp64-sp2, and MS has had the dial pegged at the "egregious" end of the scale for years.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
I think you have a pretty clear argument there for why corporations are inherently evil.
The cost of that cleanup, of course, will be borne by taxpayers, not industry.
It's true; in the short term, the long term doesn't pay off, but in the long term it does.
- The Amazina Llama
Ergo, right off the bat, about 50% of all Peruvian children [the ones who answered 5 less written multiple choice questions out of a 100] will be uneducable.
Either that, or they just read a little slower than American kids and are culturally less likely to pick random choices on questions they do not understand.
Marked flamebait, eh? Must be an Intel supporter.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
*No one else can sell laptops to third-world countries except OLPC.* was supposed to be in italics, representing a quote from the parent, but I obviously didn't *preview* now, did I? As I preview this statement, I see that italics STILL aren't working. Now I research how to report a suspected bug in slash.
Luke, help me take this mask off
Yup - Apple switched from PowerPC to Intel. Why? Because the manufacturers of PowerPC had failed to come up with a high-performance, low power CPU suitable for high-end laptops because there was no market other than Apple - for a laptop that couldn't run Windows and, instead, they'd been targeting areas like embedded devices, games consoles and *nix servers which were not completely dominated by Windows.
Meanwhile, the fact that you can now realistically run Windows alongside Mac OS is undoubtedly a factor in the Mac's new-found success.
Don't underestimate the role of Windows in Intel's success. Even Intel failed when they tried to release a 64 bit non-x86 PC chip (Itanium) which could only run most Windows software under emulation (while AMD succeeded by bolting 64-bit functionality onto an x86).
But the OLPC's choice of operating system means that it would be feasible for a future OLPC model to switch to ARM or PowerPC - and if widespread OLPC use led to Linux becoming the OS of choice in the developing world then any new players in the market would have a free choice of processor.
Good Unix/Linux programmers tend to be quite anal about making their code processor-independent, usually just needing a re-compile to target a different processor, and the Linux software distribution model means that the supplier of the Linux distribution (which may be the device manufacturer) can take responsibility for compiling and optimizing the key applications for their distro.
Its fairly unlikely that Linux is going to supplant Windows in the developed world anytime soon unless Microsoft does anything suicidal - they've got enough money and locked-in customers to weather lacklustre Vista sales. Most optimistic possibility is that Linux and Mac will grow their market share a bit, and why wouldn't Intel want a slice of that? Its not Linux per se that threatens Intel, its the idea of Linux getting in on the ground floor in "clean slate" emerging markets and establishing a local monopoly there . Maybe even that wouldn't worry Intel if not for the added AMD factor.
Mind you, the EEE PC comes with Linux as standard and Intel don't seem to worried about that (but although its a great little "second PC" its really just a diddy Iittle laptop with a solid-state disk - I don't see it catching on in the Sahara). Plus its got an Intel chip.
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
I should have said, "internal release on the corporate intranet" My Slashdot comments are often written quickly. There may be errors in editing.
The "internal release" seemed to me to be from someone who was intentionally saying something he knew to be not the full truth. To me it seemed to be disrespectful toward the reader's intelligence.
I think the OLPC idea needs perhaps 5 or 10 years to mature. After that, when every country in the world realizes how much computers help grow social strength, the market will be far larger, and commercial efforts will be very welcome.
On the other hand, if a foolish entry like Intel's is competing, from a company that has been in the past amazingly bad at producing items for users, the entire good idea could become discredited or delayed many years.
If Intel wants to compete, it should offer Mr. Negroponte cheaper processors. Producing processors is Intel's competency, something it does very well, and apparently in spite of top management.
It seems to me that this issue could eventually bring such bad press to Intel that the Intel board fires CEO Otellini.
I hope you sleep well on your pile of blood money.
And I would like to add to that: you insensitive, money-hungry monster.
Karma? What's that again?
Unless you are dyslexic ....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you are not going to be truly charitable, then don't involve your company in charitable enterprises which are *non for profit*...
It is equally unethical to try to take advantage as a contribution in such projects to peddle your wares.
Are we so morally corrupt that we can't see anymore when something is immoral or unethical (maybe not illegal mind you), and even worst, there are people out there prepared to defend or justify such actions?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Intel entered this organization not to pedal their wares, but to put an educational tool in the hand of children that may benefit of it.
Then behind the back of this organization, they try to pedal their own wares.
Honestly, what do they need to do so you stop justifying them? Using those children as slave labour in a chip factory?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes, in Mexico of our pains there are many poor children, but many of those in poverty have just enough food and clothing (because education is there, pretty much all children in Mexico go to school, and please do not dispute this fact, I have many acquaintances in the teaching profession that can vouch for this) for them to benefit of such educational tool.
This is what is happening: while children in developed countries very often have constant acccess to computers both at home ans school, in Mexico most children will not see a computer until they are 12 (if lucky). THis kind of project could help to redress the balance.
Yeah, philanthropy in Mexico sometimes is chaotic, but that does not mean that philanthropy should be discouraged.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
No child between the ages of 6 and 12 is without school. In poor areas the conditions are not ideal, and the school may not be in the immediate vicinity, but the schools are there and actually are being used.
The level of scholarity in Mexico has been raising steadily (meaning more people stay longer in school) as well as indicators like literacy (which is 92% as now, that is to say at least 92% of the population has attended enough school to learn to read, but most likely is more since there is a percentage of people that became functionally illiterate even if they received the necessary education).
So, the point is that Mexico has problems, but most children would benefit of a technological tool that gives them access to 1st world skills.
As for the tirade about Bill Gates you should know better. You know how in Mexico the drug dealers often are very loved by their communities because they give money to the church, they build a health clinic, they are patrons of artists. My point is that doing good with wealth obtained by dubious means is not necessarily as good as it may seem (and here I am not comparing Gates with a drug baron, but I use the example as a means of enhancing my point with a extreme example).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
.... by wrecking havoc with the shop you promised to help.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I wish I never have to do business with you...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Then don't do business with me. You never have to do business with anyone. Business deals and in fact all transactions are about benefitting both parties. In the simplest case you pay another person money for something you need. They get money (benefitting them) you get their good or service (benefitting you).
The real issue I take with this story is that there is an implicit assumption that what Intel did harms OLPC. All Intel did was attempt to sell a laptop at nearly twice the price with much higher specifications. If the buyer is willing to pay that much for laptops then he really wasn't in the OLPC's target market. If anything it helps OLPC by showing them that they need to refine their idea of their market niche.
And if Peru winds up buying OLPCs for primary schools and ClassMate PCs for secondary, then OLPC will know that they did get their target market right. If OLPC can only sell laptops without competition then their product is not in very high demand at all. It's basic economic theory.
I most certainly do think that business does a lot of good. But it doesn't do it out of anything other than a way of maximizing profit in the long term.
As well, individual businesses will do good in the short term because they are controlled by people who want to do good. But in a truly competitive market, only businesses that look to the bottom line survive. Doing good can help profits as long as the "goodwill" value exceeds the expense. If it doesn't, they won't do it.
You are proving the statement true. You get a return on your investment in employee loyalty and productivity. Businesses make investment decisions in different ways, You have decided that your employees are worth investing in, so you get a better employee and therefore more long term profit.
If you did it but employees started leaving in greater numbers because of it (thinking it "unbusinesslike" say), would you continue?