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Big Delays, Small Laptops: OLPC XO Recipients Mad

Posted by Soulskill on from the give-one-get-one-if-you-are-lucky dept.

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."

3 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. No, I still don't have my XO... by gorim · · Score: 3, Informative

    And I can't even track my order in their online tracking database. First email went unanswered and second one got a response, but was missing any indication of when they would ship, just that they were overwhelmed with the response.

  2. Re:Focus on what they do best? by adriccom · · Score: 5, Informative

    Oddly, that is who OLPC partnered with to do G1G1, and who share the blame for the screwups.

    Please see the draft flowchart, if you like:
    http://wiki.laptop.org/go/How_laptop_delivery_works

    --
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  3. Re:Why am I not surprised? by mi · · Score: 3, Informative

    Seriously, corporations suck - in my experience they're much more hopeless than government organisations.

    Where I'm from the government was providing all of the services, and some of the services you are listing — Internet, Mobile Phones — simply did not exist. To get a regular phone line, one had to wait in queue for years.

    I reckon that whoever says the opposite has an agenda.

    Yes, and whoever disagrees with me is a moron.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.