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.'"

Comments

The poorest

[BPPG]

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.

Intel is all kinds of Wrong.

[MrCopilot]

I just wrote up an article on this story yesterday.

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.

Re:Intel is all kinds of Wrong.

[kie]

For those too lazy to click to see the official response, (which is pretty damning):
INTEL RESIGNS FROM OLPC

We at OLPC have been disappointed that Intel did not deliver on any of the promises they made when they joined OLPC; while we were hopeful for a positive, collaborative relationship, it never materialized.

Intel came in late to the OLPC association: they joined an already strong and thriving OLPC Board of Directors made up of premier technology partners; these partners have been crucial in helping us fulfill our mission of getting laptops into the hands of children in the developing world. We have always embraced and welcomed other low-cost laptop providers to join us in this mission. But since joining the OLPC Board of Directors in July, Intel has violated its written agreement with OLPC on numerous occasions. Intel continued to disparage the XO laptop in nations that had already decided to partner with OLPC (Uruguay and Peru), with countries that were in the midst of choosing a laptop solution (Brazil and Nigeria), and other countries contemplating a laptop program (Mongolia).

Intel was unwilling to work cooperatively with OLPC on software development. Over the entire six months it was a member of the association, Intel contributed nothing of value to OLPC: Intel never contributed in any way to our engineering efforts and failed to provide even a single line of code to the XO software efforts - even though Intel marketed its products as being able to run the XO software. The best Intel could offer in regards to an "Intel inside" XO laptop was one that would be more expensive and consume more power - exactly the opposite direction of OLPC's stated mandate and vision.

Despite OLPC's best efforts to work things out with Intel and several warnings that their behavior was untenable, it is clear that Intel's heart has never been in working collaboratively as a part of OLPC. This is well illustrated by the way in which our separation was announced singlehandedly by Intel; Intel issued a statement to the press behind our backs while simultaneously asking us to work on a joint statement with them. Actions do speak louder than words in this case. As we said in the past, we view the children as a mission; Intel views them as a market.

The benefit to the departure of Intel from the OLPC board is a renewed clarity in purpose and the marketplace; we will continue to focus on our mission of providing every child with an opportunity for learning.

Re:Intel just sucks.

[Anonymous Coward]

> If not for AMD, Intel would be the M$ of the processor market.

Isn't that just some Godwin variant?

AMD, Apple, IBM, Intel... these are just companies trying to outsmart the competition. You don't seriously think the Intel board sat down and said, "hey let's maliciously fuck-over the OLPC project"? That would take a special brand of evil, the kind that is only occurs naturally in Redmond.

Re:No surprise here

[marcello_dl]

Very true, but it's an excuse.
As a stockholder you are never asked about whether you want your corporation to behave well.
As a stockholder you are given an annual meeting, with buffet and speeches and an opposition which seldom raises questions like: why does this bank finances this oppressive regime? why does this corporation infiltrate and boycott this humanitarian program? To make me earn more? If I want to earn more no matter the ethics, I'd be a criminal. Especially in the criminal's paradise Italy has become.

Re:No surprise here

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Sorry!

I'm sick and tired of this hard-nosed extreemist capitalist view. It's bullshit, pure and simple. Take a look at what you're actually saying - competing with and screwing over a charity is really bad form. You people need to remember that capitalism is NOT PERFECT, and worshipping it's principles as if they were the most fundamental rules in the universe is really dumb.

Re:Intel just sucks.

[sacrilicious]

You don't seriously think the Intel board sat down and said, "hey let's maliciously fuck-over the OLPC project"?

Your comment might have been intended as humor, but it's currently marked "insightful" so I'm responding to it on that basis (if not for your sake than for the sake of anyone who does think it's insightful).

Aside from the specific choice of language, you really think it's far fetched? If so, then let me spell it out for you: YES, Intel could well have had meetings where they explicitly planned to do things in breach of either the word or spirit of their arrangements with OLPC, aka "maliciously fucking over" their partner. Intel is a for-profit American corporation. Not even outright breaches of contract are off-limits for corporations; they'll do it every time they think it will make them more money than holding to a contract would.

It is far more plausible that Intel planned this all the way up the ladder than that this one salesperson just decided to be a maverick and try to subvert things without any approval from management.

I'd hate to think you're more comfortable hiding behind the posture that technically, nobody at any Intel meetings used the specific words "maliciously fuck-over".

Re:The NYT headline is a bit inflammatory...

[alegrepublic]

Intel wants to sell PC's. There lies the problem. Intel should restrain from selling PC's and focus on selling chips. They are abusing their prominent position in the chip market to get an unfair advantage in other markets. They have learned too much from their unnamed software partner.

Re:Intel just sucks - Agreed

[WGR]

One problem is that there are so few people out there like Mr. Negroponte in the business world

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.

Re:Why is everyone going after Intel?

[JamesTRexx]

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.

Don't get mad, get even!

[ArtDent]

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!

"fsck" Intel..

[tech10171968]

"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.

Re:So they're a normal corporation, eh?

[Scrameustache]

aren't you effectively saying that these third world countries are somewhat at fault because they have the temerity to actually *want* (desire, demand), a more powerful computer that more closely conforms to the de-facto MS/x86 standard? No, I'm saying you are the apologist of greedy bastards who are actively spending large quantities of money to convince the decision makers of these nations that they should make wintel products the defacto monopoly in their country.

Not everyone's needs are met by the cheapest product, which is why Mercedes has market share (to use another car analogy). And this is the part where I call you names: You fucking asshole, this is a project to meet the educational needs of those less fortunate, not a fucking luxury, you capitalist pig-dog. They are trying to sell (through unethical, contract-breaching means) a downgraded business laptop to people who need a custom-designed low-power, all-terrain information-processing machine.

Those kids are not a market, this non-profit enterprise is not a business rival. If they want to sell their power-hungry laptop with their fancy CPUs, they can sell them to the kids when they grow up with computer skills and outgrow their XO, but paying a fee to get on the board of a charity (a tax-exempting fee, I'm sure) and then telling governments that being on the board has let them glean information that make them think the whole thing is going to implode (possibly with the ring of truth that knowingly sabotaging them brings) is indefensible, you monster.