It's ego check time for Intel, Negroponte

I've long admired the work done by Nicholas Negroponte in helping the world's cyber have-nots get wired. Ditto for Intel. That company's track record of achievement through the decades speaks for itself.

So I'm especially puzzled over the inane dustup that erupted this week between Negroponte's nonprofit One Laptop Per Child and Intel.

Intel sits on the OLPC board but this has been a bad marriage for months. On Thursday, the rancor went public. Intel leaked to The Wall Street Journal its decision to cut ties with OLPC. One day later, a press release went out under Negroponte's name, accusing Intel of a litany of misdeeds. This sort of heat seeker is rare to find anymore in the oh-so-scripted tech industry where PR dainties usually run the show. As such, it deserves being quoted at length:

"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...Intel has violated its written agreement with OLPC on numerous occasions. Intel continued to disparage the XO laptop in developing 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 even small and remote places (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 single-handedly 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."

OK, it's obvious that Negroponte is pissed. Royally. But as my CNET News.com colleague Tom Krazit pointed out during Friday's podcast, neither Negroponte nor Intel has a divine right to market laptops to the developing world. This is a competition between organizations that are shooting for the same goal. Forgetting the Godfather rule of business, Negroponte's whiny diatribe is turning this into a clash of personalities.

That doesn't let Intel off the hook.

The company's actions make it appear every bit the money-grubbing predator that Negroponte suggests. The company is going after many of the same markets earmarked by OLPC. On the surface, that doesn't sound untoward. If anything, it's old-fashioned competition. But you have to wonder whether Intel would be so gung-ho if the OLPC's machine featured an Intel processor rather than one from rival Advanced Micro Devices. (The public divorce obviously puts the kibosh on plans for an upcoming Intel-based unit from OLPC.)

There's too much ill will to get the sides back together. But nobody came out ahead in the aftermath of this ridiculous spat. The only losers are the world's poor who might have benefited from a fruitful partnership between Intel and OLPC.

[Ancheta Wis]

Intel and vision

As a stockholder of Intel since the 1970's I remember when Intel performed a comprehensive survey of a conceivable uses of a microprocessor -- and the PC was not on that list.

[Charbax]

OLPC is open, anyone can improve it

Intel hates open-source hardware, open-source software and hates the prospects of a redefination of Moore's Law. Computers should be half the price and less power hungry every 18 months instead of maintainging the same price and increasing power consumption.

The whole point of open-source is that anyone on this planet with a better idea, with a new invention, with better software, is welcome to come and improve the OLPC project. Just go on its Wiki and participate. Anyone can take hardware, software, implementation, knowledge from OLPC and deploy their own laptop projects for free if for non-profit educationnal purposes especially in developping countries and by paying OLPC patent royalties for use of the technology for commercial purposes.

[lefite]

OLPC for American Kids

Respectfully, I believe making OLPC available to poor and underserved American kids will provide a peer group here at home for the kids in underdeveloped countries. They will bring the solutions to one another. If kids around the world are the future, so much more so are our own right here at home.

[hawkeyeaz1]

Intel hates opensource?

Intel is one of the larges corporate contributers to the opensource community as far as hardware compatibility, drivers, kernel development, etc goes.

[tzery]

Intel vs Negroponte

The key thing distinguishing the two efforts (not highlighted here), is that OLPC is not for profit. Intel is nothing but profit, and its bottom line is being challenged. OLPC is an educational project, Intel is defending a market it sees as being its own. Intel has been disingenuous throughout. It was Andy Groves, after all, who wrote a book entitled Only the Paranoid Survive.

[SmpCtryPhys]

IT Ethics

The question is really one of whether Intel should be held accountable for a stunning lack of ethics or whether Megroponte should be held accountable for the naivety of trusting them. It is inherent to the success of any project that it needs three managers: a technical manager to develop the product; a professional manager to deploy the product; and an accountant-manager to inter the corpse. Perhaps it is time for a new manager for OLPC? Perhaps one who knows how untrustworthy corporate organizations inherently are?

[john55440]

Competition is good...

Competion is good, so the ultimate winner of this messy situation will be the computer buyer/user.

(Negroponte is the one with the out of control ego.)

[hardedge]

Of course it would....

Surely Intel would be going after any market in which it thought it could make a profit --that's business. And if one segment of the market is approached by a competing product then it's a company's duty to its stockholders to attempt an inroad into there as well.

How better to do that than to learn the ins and outs of the competition and cater a competing product to overcome and shortfalls. (Remember Intel's motherboard certification program, followed shortly by the release of Intel's own motherboards?)

Negroponte is just prissy because he can't dictate terms to a company the size of Intel --which he needs much more than it needs him. The XO was ill-conceived originally and the cost overruns that have caused the price to rise speak to its basic inept design. In my opinion, Negroponte is also an idiot bu that's neither here nor there.

[The_Decider]

Altuism vs greed

Intel is in this for the money. Any benefits to society is purely coincidental. This is no different then any company: Microsoft, Novell, Nike, etc.

The OLPC was at least at the beginning altruistic. Although it seems that helping people and developing nations is taking a back seat to ego.

If Intel was not interested in contributing they never should have joined. That is the bottom line.