Big Delays, Small Laptops: OLPC XO Recipients Mad

PCWMike writes to tell us about the growing concern over the failure of OLPC to deliver laptops to some of its customers. PC World editor-in-chief Harry McCracken notes that record-keeping was poor for some of the people who paid via PayPal. A report on LinuxJournal also suggests that customer information was lost due to errors in the database software used by OLPC. Quoting PC World: "OLPC spokesperson Jackie Lustig acknowledges problems with the ordering and the fulfillment process, but says the biggest challenges are a short supply of XO laptops and the organization's ability to meet consumer demand for the XO laptop. Some also wonder whether chronic delivery problems for Give One, Get One donors may bode poorly for the 15 countries slated to receive nearly 500,000 XO notebooks. Lustig says delivering in bulk to just over a dozen countries is infinitely simpler than processing and delivering 80,000 individual laptops."

Comments

it wouldnt have anything to do with

[hesaigo999ca]

It wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that India seems to be the ones handling the support, and that they are the worst for such things, oops we lost your information...but don't worry it's ok. Just means you will have to wait extra long while we laugh at how stupid some big corporations are by outsourcing their work over seas seeing as their quality control is different then ours

I know someone in the textiles industry and you would not believe the stuff they pull, shipments of 10,000 units with one pant leg 5 inches shorter then the other, then they say something like, we can give you a small rebate or try to fix it after the fact, which means you miss your deadline, which means penalty, which means revenue loss.

And try to make them pay for it, your shipment will get stuck at the border on purpose, and stay there indefinitely. India is a piss poor country, you think they care if your shipment makwes it on time, when they have to worry about being able to get food to their homes, and find a way to
pay the rent as the 1$ an hour job doesn't cut it...India sucks

Fish bowl

[WindBourne]

there are probably less hassles with this group than is seen in a normal business, but since they are being attacked by MS and Intel, they are in a small fish bowl. I wonder if and how many of the orders were purposely done incorrect to make sure that there were issues? It is the perfect form of an attack and certainly within the scope of how either company operates.