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OLPC and Intel bury the hatchet--for the children
July 13, 2007
At the forefront of this movement is Professor Nicholas Negroponte, founder and former director of the MIT Media Lab. His not-for-profit One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project has been developing a laptop (targeted at $100 but currently struggling to break $200) suitable for use by every child in the developing world. Recently, Intel joined the board of OLPC and will even contribute funding to the project.
Helping people in the developing world cross the digital divide is a fundamental act of decency, generosity--and even self-interest--as these new markets grow, consumers spend and productivity surges. The need for technology among the underserved is so urgent, hopeful thinking goes, that even a computer with no commercial viability--no distribution channels, maintenance, training, programming services and in fact virtually no IT ecosystem at all--can meet that market's need.
As laudable as this dream is, the ideal unfortunately runs counter to a fundamental fact of life: a computer cannot exist independent of basic economic realities.
A computer is, rather, a creature of connectivity and collaboration. And, given the economic realities in the developing world, $200 computers can not generate the profit essential for the creation of a robust IT ecosystem, essential to ensure successful deployment, ongoing operation and maintenance.
The price of a base-level personal computer today is about $400. That hasn't changed much in the last ten years, although the power this computer delivers has increased profoundly. As a result, however, the world computer user base has been stuck at a largely saturated 850 million users for years. Unfortunately another billion potential users--most in developing and underserved markets like education--cannot afford the requisite $400. If we can merely squeeze down the price tag, have we solved their problem?
Only if you believe that OLPC and Intel's $200 laptop, with their PDA-like, seven-inch screens and obsolete processors are the answer. But the developing world is not just "village kids," but rather motivated, ambitious people engaged in business, agriculture, commerce, health care, finance and education.
For PCs to be productive in this business and educational landscape, they require a host of supporting services, plus reasonable features and capabilities. A PC must communicate, which mandates connectivity. That, in turn, demands configuration, maintenance, professional services, technical support, hardware and software upgradeability. Without a healthy ecosystem, a PC is not worth even $200.
Here in the developed world, the PC hardware makers have put up with profitless computing for years as a result of operating in a saturated, upgrade-driven market. We know our industry is in sick condition and we have now driven down the cost of "real PCs" as far as they can go.
However, not everyone needs their own PC. What they do need is access to the functionality and benefits that the PC provides, delivered in an affordable and efficient way. That's where I believe multi-user computing fills the void.
This multi-user model is not new. During the 1960s, when computers were all mainframes and cost millions, multi-user computing, in the form of time sharing (where we rented access by the hour using low-cost "dumb terminals") was our first tool for expanding the market from the "Fortunate 500" to the rest of us. This model continued through the 1970s with $100,000 and ultimately $10,000 minicomputers further expanding the market. In the 1980s came the PC and the world changed; ultimately, we all got our own computers.
Although the last ten years have seen very little movement in the price of low-end PCs, technology advances have turned the 2007 entry-level PC into a very muscular piece of technology whose gigapower is more than 1,000 times that of a $400 box built in 1998. Only a fraction of today's PC users, such as computational scientists, extreme gamers, graphic artists and industrial designers use more than a few percent of what these mainframes on a desk can offer.
As a result, the vast majority of those CPU cycles are wasted, burning energy (150 to 200 watts per box), costly and scarce in these markets and becoming ever more costly to own. So why not harness and share this extra capacity and resurrect these proven techniques and technologies from the past to take today's "mainframe on a desk" and put its power to work?
Enterprise computer users have been benefiting from the PC version of multi-user computing since 1990, which our industry has dubbed "server-based computing." Blade computing and virtualization are the latest twists on this same multi-user concept.
However, these enterprise software and hardware components are expensive. The software licenses alone often add up to more than the cost of the full or stripped-down PCs being used as the access terminals. These terminals (thin clients) are themselves as expensive as low-end PCs. It has been, thus far, a technology for the rich and fortunate.
A number of new firms, including my own company, NComputing, have reincarnated the thin client with non-CPU-based access terminals. Access terminals are being built today at costs as low as $11 and sold for well under $100 per user. At the same time, they provide manufacturers, distributors, resellers and maintenance partners with full commercial margins. The expensive software and high-end servers have been replaced by low-cost or free software and desktop PCs. These multi-user environments tap the power of low-end PCs to support 10 or more concurrent users with power consumption of under 6 watts per user.
All the evidence undercuts the widespread technology assumption about how best to liberate emerging regions of the globe from the energy-wasteful business model which is being foisted upon them today.
Biography
Stephen Dukker is chief executive of
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There's a heck of a market out there for a small laptop that can run all day on batteries, but there isn't much profit to be made off them.
Without too much effort the third world has not only found out how to effectively timeshare these sub <$300 machines (they use a free market model) but they have given rise to millions of small businesses running on these time shared systems.
This solution requires only connectivity, electricity and a continuting cascade of hardware from the upgrade cycle. Which means the real answer to hooking up the third world are groups like Geekcorps, not another thin client business looking for a market.
Part of the problem (like most of the arrogant western-world's approach to third-world aid) is the idea that we can hand out these "this is what we think you can handle" concepts when what they are actually happy with is the building blocks of what we've already had. In other words, in order to really grow, they need to experince what we have in the past. They aren't going to learn anything from these packaged "just add water" approaches.
The thin-client model for places that totally lack infastructure just sounds like a business plan looking for an excuse to happen. It's not what they need.
Yes, Stupid, it [i]can[/i] be.
I can confidently say that it is very possible to run servers for HTTP (Apache), SMTP (via postfix), MySQL (yes, you read that right), and a whole host of other enterprise-grade server software on one of those laptops you so easily deride, even chaining them together to create an impromptu but damned workable basic infrastructure. The only limitation is storage space, which a few USB external disks can cover without too much cost or bother.
Deride it all you want, but it is this spirit of improvisation which often creates the largest and most fundamental changes.
/P
Bwa, wha? The price of a base-level computer
10 years ago was no where near $400. It was
more like $1000-$1500.
Hard to take the authors opinions seriously
when he makes such outrageous remarks. I
stopped reading the article after that bit
of nonsense.
Do people who have an access to Internet do better? Are American school students do better because they have the access to the Internet? US students are still ranks 26th and 28th in the world in Math and Science. US is producing uneducated and unskilled workers only from high school level but college level as well.
The idea that if Rwanda or Sudan had the internet, it would solve their current or future political problem is a simpletonian idea. How long have we been seeing hungry African people on TV. it never ends. Per haps, it's not the computer or the internet. What would they do next? US has been fighting poverty for almost 100 years at cost of $6 trillion money transfer. Yet, John Edward is flying everywhere to find poverty. His solution is to give pay checks to those who work. Brilliant, isn't it! Imagine, you give a paycheck to those who work in America! Move mover Sam Walton, we need the Ed-Mart.
$200 iPhone? Would iPod solve problems? If they just listen to Paris Hilton's song, they would be a lot better off? Or maybe, Umbrella ella ella?
Ideas like this fail every where. Yet, they are allowed to get away with their no-results without any consequences. Remember the ?Red Campaign? how they spent $100 million to collect $11 million as of 02/2007. also, the end poverty thing, ?ONE? by Bono of U2, He makes a t-shirt that?s made in Lesotho that cost $54? donates $0.25 into actual charity, which is made, managed, and sold by his wife. He tells everybody else to pay taxes, yet he evades paying taxes. I am not pro-tax but this guy tells everybody else to pay more taxes but not him.
It seems that people who are proposing the $200 PC not only dismiss principles of Economics but they repeat this every where in life. They have this utopian idea that thing should be xyz. The produce significantly degraded experience at the end. people are lauded because of their utopian idea rather than for their (long term) results.
Do people who have an access to Internet do better? Are American school students do better because they have the access to the Internet? US students are still ranks 26th and 28th in the world in Math and Science. US is producing uneducated and unskilled workers only from high school level but college level as well.
The idea that if Rwanda or Sudan had the internet, it would solve their current or future political problem is a simpletonian idea. How long have we been seeing hungry African people on TV. it never ends. Per haps, it's not the computer or the internet. What would they do next? US has been fighting poverty for almost 100 years at cost of $6 trillion money transfer. Yet, John Edward is flying everywhere to find poverty. His solution is to give pay checks to those who work. Brilliant, isn't it! Imagine, you give a paycheck to those who work in America! Move mover Sam Walton, we need the Ed-Mart.
$200 iPhone? Would iPod solve problems? If they just listen to Paris Hilton's song, they would be a lot better off? Or maybe, Umbrella ella ella?
Ideas like this fail every where. Yet, they are allowed to get away with their no-results without any consequences. Remember the ?Red Campaign? how they spent $100 million to collect $11 million as of 02/2007. also, the end poverty thing, ?ONE? by Bono of U2, He makes a t-shirt that?s made in Lesotho that cost $54? donates $0.25 into actual charity, which is made, managed, and sold by his wife. He tells everybody else to pay taxes, yet he evades paying taxes. I am not pro-tax but this guy tells everybody else to pay more taxes but not him.
The claim that there is something inherently wrong with Africans that is the core of rk2469's 'wisdom' is just plain, unadulterated racism.
OLCP is pursuing a nonexistant market. That's why he's targeting government buys. Government buying those machines means there is no market. The self-saficentcy reenforces the point.
Governments will buy the computers because the children's parents can't afford them. Also, education is a government function.
It amazes me that some people fail to grasp that circumstances in an affluent society differ from those in most of the world.
Thin clients are great where there is a connection to the internet/network location
But where there is no connectivity or even reliable electricity the OLPC initiative is a better match.
For Eco-system. Remember all the programmers and support people who earned a living as computers became more important. If OLPC works then local people should have the chance to gain through software and support.
With a thin-client all the support is maintained by the network owner, so there is very limited opportunity for local people to gain.
Finally, remember the 80s when a lot of people who now read news.com began learning about computers on Commodore/Atari/Sinclair computers. A lot of people have their careers based on their early tinkering and development. This is what I believe the OLPC project is work towards.
Children get the change to learn/experiment and gain skills that will be valuable to them in the future. Not a bad goal.
It should be great to see the effect this has on the local economies when the OLPC has been running for a few years.
concept behind the OLPC initiative?
More details on my blog:
http://mrzonbu.wordpress.com
However, it?s a big world, whether you view it as a market opportunity, a target for philanthropy, or a collection of societies that are better left to their own devices. There?s room enough for everybody, and the high demand for computer usage in developing countries will likely be met by a wide variety of computing solutions.
The simultaneous use of one modern, powerful PC by multiple users is one of many viable options for reducing the cost of computing ? a goal for many people in both developing and developed countries. Several companies have played with the idea, but larger multinationals have shied away from it, believing a multi-user system would cannibalize their individual-user PC sales and put further pressure on already slim margins.
Ncomputing, Userful, and a few other companies have figured out that multi-user computers can be profitable while meeting a key user demand (i.e., lower per-seat costs). For those who are interested, Vital Wave Consulting (where I work) has produced a brief report on the business case for multi-user computers. Visit http://www.vitalwaveconsulting.com/publications-2.htm for details.
Most of these people in the third world country don't use the latest and greatest software. They have modem connection and use older pentium II, pentium III, athlon processors and others pc's that the US corporate companies dumped. Just think if they can get the same kind of hardware with the smaller footfront.
The problem is the software support. OLPC have created one software image that everybody can use. Most people with the $199 eee 701 would just want to surf the web, send e-mail, and maybe use some nifty programs that doesn't require the horsepower.
than their citizens or this thing ain't going to fly.
The only "problem" is "keeping up with the Joneses" or the upgrade / obsoletism syndrome referred to in the article. Those expectations are "1st world" expectations of computers.
It's just like many in America expect cars to have power locks, windows, heat, a/c, radio, remote locks but in many countries those would be viewed not only as options but luxuries.
Plus the major workload on home computers tends to be high-end 3d / video graphics for games / video yet aside from them, most people wouldn't "require" them.
Besides, the most popular online activity is email.
-- Ken from Chicago
P.S. One could easily add peripherals for those who don't want to thumb-type on a cellphone keyboard or watch a cellphone display screen.
Wal-mart, K-Mart, planned to sell a $299 Geos based PC called the Global PC. Reported by CNet news.
The iToaster was reported to be a $199 BeOS based PC.
I think we will see a $199 Linux based PC soon. Wal-Mart used to sell $199 Linspire/Lindows based PCs, and I think the Linux community can pick the low level parts that don't cost too much to build $199 Linux desktops. Or at least bundle them with an ISP contract to reduce the price to $199 or lower.
Dukker wants to sell his product regardless of whether a market is suited to what he is offering. The education market in developing countries is not.
I will keep the name of his company in mind so I can warn people away from it.
- Here's an idea you dolts!
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by x1134x
July 27, 2007 12:30 AM PDT
- how about instead of OLPC they try first olpAc One laptop per *american* child. Much easier, more feasible and would actually make great change. These damn idealogues **** me off when they operate with this "global concience". Need I remind them that the USA is on the GLOBE!
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(29 Comments)"Helping people in the developing world cross the digital divide is a fundamental act of decency, generosity" -- -- BAARRRF! Help the americans cross that divide 1st, you're putting the cart before the horse. This is the eventual result government enforced charity, USA charity is taken care of by forcible taxation and redistribution of wealth. Companies no longer think of being philanthropic within the US because 1. it (the charitable need) already has a law, a tax and a system to feed it, or 2. They're idiots who think the US has progressed far enough and is somehow "leaving the third world behind" and shouldn't progress furthur until we catch the rest of the world up. There's a reason its sometimes referred to as "the turd world" the people themselves have let *themselves* get left behind. When they are done with their stupid civil wars, find borders and democracy, they'll catch up quick, and since we cannot FORCE democracy on the turd world, (as is evident in IRAQ) we will just have to be content to wait it out for how many ever generations it takes for these people to produce progeny that will move ITSELF forward.
The *only* good thing about this is - at least for now,- there is no OLPTWC (one laptop per turd world child) tax forcibly taken from me.
I would *NOT* be infavor of a OLPAC tax per se but I would donate an amount of money to that cause.