Slashdot Mirror
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."
He is absolutely correct; a half-million units shipped to just 12 to 15 destinations *IS* simple by comparison. Just look at the complexities of UPS' operations in moving 80000 packages within the boundaries of the US, and that becomes apparent.
Believe nothing, not even if I say it, if it violates your sense of reason -- Buddha
From the summary:
"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....Lustig says delivering in bulk to just over a dozen countries is infinitely simpler than processing and delivering 80,000 individual laptops."
But how can that be, if the problem is short supply of the laptop?
Cheers,
Ian
This OLPC is going to change the world. I've got mine now and it is wonderful exactly what is needed IMHO. They are trying to do something that is very very hard and they need all the encouragement and kind words that are to be found. I hope they solve their delivery problems smoothly soon. No lack of talent in this group of people.
They don't want to do distribution, shipping tens of thousands of things all around a continent isn't that easy.. Just getting payments information from paypal can be a hard thing to do.
Saying this will happen to governments orders as well is very strange, and uncalled for.
...but PC World, questioning OLPC's ability to deliver? And goodness me, look here: Intel and Microsoft with their alternative. No doubt Classmate sales-pitches will involve a lot of paraphrasing from articles of this type.
It seems that a lot of recent OLPC stories are being drummed up to try and discredit them, and it is a bit sickening.
It looks like this eager and well intentioned group of people is trying to do it all but perhaps is best at developing the software and hardware. Perhaps they should focus on that and leave sales and distribution to people who are experts with these much different skills.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I'm in Canada, and waited 7 weeks for my XO to arrive. No biggie. I've waited almost as long for Dell to ship correctly configured servers on occasion. Those were biggies. Were my expectations appropriate for each company? I think so.
I'm sure that OLPC will honor all their commitments and get these orders out as soon as they can. Sometime s**t happens, and things falls through the cracks. People should just take a deep breath, and ask themselves if they'd rather have their XO right now, or have the one they donated delivered first.
G1G1 doesn't stand for "Get one, give one".
All OLPC needs to do is ensure they are able to focus upon delivery or subcontract those services out to a logistics company that can achieve those goals at a reasonable price. The logistics route is often simpler as those companies can readily handle break down packaging from bulk to individual orders as well as final delivery to the recipient and if required keep the recipient advised if there are any delivery delays.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
If the online tracking database worked. As of now you type in your email address or order number and it can't find you. This leads one to believe that the order was lost even though payment was already extracted. At least with your Dell shipment, Dell could tell you the order was in the system and will ship in X time.
Well, when is the last time you had a major reputable corporation just completely lose you order after you paid them? Not lose your shipment, not screw your order up, but COMPLETELY LOSE IT. This suggests a pretty basic level of incompetence.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I've shelled out $423.95 x 2 and am still waiting. And it's a shame that it's taking so long. But I'm happier that working-class kids in Mongolia (no, not "starving to death" people) have laptops, and I can wait. (I'm posting about it on THE INTERNET so clearly I'm not exactly struggling for 'net access.)
They had pro-bono donation of services from three (or more) different companies to handle ordering and distribution. Not having a logistics manager or dealing with the process openly *is* a shame. Lots of individuals unaffiliated have been volunteering their time, trying to help, but have been powerless to actually *do* anything, since the volunteers don't have access to all of the data sets.
Hopefully the next time they offer G1G1 they'll manage the order/delivery status themselves, they *should* be able to track each laptop from Quanta, to the shipping carrier, to the port, to FedEx.
o/~ Join us now and share the software
Well, I haven't had a major coporation lose an order of mine. However, I'm a small sample set.
I've just moved to the UK, and the incompetence of various companies has absolutely astounded me. I've just set up
Banking
Phone
Internet
Mobile Phones
Insurance
Not once - NOT A SINGLE TIME - has the company not cocked up something that has required me to phone them back (and queue on the phone) at least once. Several cases have require multiple such calls (the worst required me to ditch them and go with someone else). Seriously, corporations suck - in my experience they're much more hopeless than government organisations. I reckon that whoever says the opposite has an agenda.