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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."

7 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. Money transferred but no accountability? by Malevolent+Tester · · Score: 5, Funny

    They're really getting the hang of foreign aid. I applaud OLPC for their quick adaption.

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    1. Re:Money transferred but no accountability? by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Funny

      Also, they've unashamedly fucking over their early adopters and strongest advocates. Have they been acquired by Apple?

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  2. It *is* simpler by BlackHawk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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    1. Re:It *is* simpler by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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. Yep. This is why any company that does significant amounts of shipping has an entire department and sometimes more than one department devoted to it. Some companies even have entire shipping divisions. Moving a large number of packages quickly is a significant undertaking and that's why there's an entire industry called the logistics industry devoted to it. A friend of mine works in the logistics industry and her job is to coordinate the shipping of packages and crates to various places around the world. It's a big job.
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  3. Please reconcile by mccalli · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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

  4. Seems a bit mean-spirited... by Obstin8 · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This article, and others like it that I've read, seem a little bit mean-spirited. OLPC is, after all, a charity organization - a noble one at that -, and not some high-volume order fulfillment logistics operation. All these articles suggest a crass, inflated-expectation, instant-gratification, "I WANT IT NOW!", type of consumerism to me.

    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".

  5. 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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