Journal betasam's Journal: The $100 Laptop 1
With another hype for Negroponte's Dream $100 Laptop and his One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative I see this pipe dream go on and on. The corporate world works on an economic equation. Among Food, Clothing and Shelter - the minimal human necessities to be provided with sanitation and humane living conditions - The UN has had far fetched ideas on providing this to all humanity. But they simply don't seem to be going anywhere inspite of the fact that these are but the basic necessities (not luxuries). Literacy campains have been hard to work out in many parts of the world. Now Negroponte I assume wants to make the Literati become the Digerati with this device. This bridging of the digital divide is more of an issue of user interface, support and continual services (more so like the phone/PDA industry) than just "affordability". Affordable mobile phones in India work because each segment of the population is able to help out the other segment (economically separated) in using different classes of phones (from the $1000 PDA handphone to the $50 utility handphone.) Still, they share common services and the economy thus is able to support the different tiers comfortably.
Massive Food manufacturing technology which could help undernourished and malnourished children in unfortunate environments is still lacking. This again is worsened by the lack of a safe distribution system in politically volatile areas. With so much of the basics still left to tackle, I do not see the "PC" or "Computing" as a knowledge/education tool entering the picture. We are talking about places where per capita income is averaging about $1000 a year. If these machines are even economically feasible to manufacture and distribute (this is no joke) how is the average (possibly illiterate child) going to benefit. Wherever education has been given importance, the economically viable cost vs. features of the computing devices has adapted to markets and become more availabe. Commoditisation (which happened to Phones and Televisions) is a gradual economic process which cannot be accelerated. Earlier every family had one phone, now each member of the family has one phone due to extreme commoditisation and the process has been gradual. I can say the same about Television sets too. Even if you actually introduce a product at $100 simply because the market would not be there to receive it. The market's needs would be different. MIT's techies may be the best in the world, but Maslow's need hierarchy is still valid in most circumstances and circumventing it is of no great economic or political consequence. As I remember Negroponte has had this dream long ago and has always blamed any failure (if on starting or on continuance) on the right time and opportunity.
I still feel that this is a plan going nowhere as the deployment and utility (even if the economy were to absorb this with a necessity) would pose significant problems. Further still, I know that Redhat pulled out of the "Desktop" business because it wasn't as profitable for itself as its own "Enterprise" business. They also did a cut down on embedded activity to give a full push to their bread-winner, a proper corporate move indeed that kept their balance sheets growing. Now, I see them suddenly step up and offer all support to the $100 Laptop cause which is contradictory to their corporate image. IMO, Redhat need do no more lipservice to linux, their staff have done true service already and continue to contribute. There's no point in posting a press release saying we'll provide the linux support - because the press release reads MIT's tech team has had over 20 years experience in computing. Now, Are we supposed to assume that this team can't just take a neat Debian or Ubuntu and offer it. Under the same argument I could ask why not go to Dell or Lenovo and ask them to help for this humane cause? MIT too is seeking publicity here. (duh!) How could Redhat which partly stepped out of Desktops because it couldn't work out the usability equation on its distributions suddenly come and provide an "education"*usable $100 laptop? To be a successful corporate doesn't mean imitating every corporate in the block by making flashy press releases. This is really negative if it doesn't work (and the odds aren't really good here.) I simply read that Redhat is vacillating looking at Ubuntu after a prior decision to address enterprise customers in a big way.
The last news item I would want to be laughing on news is "100 Somali children have been presented with $100 Laptops courtesy of MIT and Redhat technical teams." Sometimes everyone needs to state their goals and priorities right, and I don't think that's what this is about. In India, HCL came up with an almost $160 PC that wasn't a radical success as the population already had set its mind that INR 16-20K (roughly close to $500) was where they could afford a truly usable PC. They didn't want a mock-up PC that would crawl and slow them down even if it were affordable. They could still go to cafes and rent PC usage time for less. Practicability is sometimes lacking in University campuses as they cease to look at the real world.
Massive Food manufacturing technology which could help undernourished and malnourished children in unfortunate environments is still lacking. This again is worsened by the lack of a safe distribution system in politically volatile areas. With so much of the basics still left to tackle, I do not see the "PC" or "Computing" as a knowledge/education tool entering the picture. We are talking about places where per capita income is averaging about $1000 a year. If these machines are even economically feasible to manufacture and distribute (this is no joke) how is the average (possibly illiterate child) going to benefit. Wherever education has been given importance, the economically viable cost vs. features of the computing devices has adapted to markets and become more availabe. Commoditisation (which happened to Phones and Televisions) is a gradual economic process which cannot be accelerated. Earlier every family had one phone, now each member of the family has one phone due to extreme commoditisation and the process has been gradual. I can say the same about Television sets too. Even if you actually introduce a product at $100 simply because the market would not be there to receive it. The market's needs would be different. MIT's techies may be the best in the world, but Maslow's need hierarchy is still valid in most circumstances and circumventing it is of no great economic or political consequence. As I remember Negroponte has had this dream long ago and has always blamed any failure (if on starting or on continuance) on the right time and opportunity.
I still feel that this is a plan going nowhere as the deployment and utility (even if the economy were to absorb this with a necessity) would pose significant problems. Further still, I know that Redhat pulled out of the "Desktop" business because it wasn't as profitable for itself as its own "Enterprise" business. They also did a cut down on embedded activity to give a full push to their bread-winner, a proper corporate move indeed that kept their balance sheets growing. Now, I see them suddenly step up and offer all support to the $100 Laptop cause which is contradictory to their corporate image. IMO, Redhat need do no more lipservice to linux, their staff have done true service already and continue to contribute. There's no point in posting a press release saying we'll provide the linux support - because the press release reads MIT's tech team has had over 20 years experience in computing. Now, Are we supposed to assume that this team can't just take a neat Debian or Ubuntu and offer it. Under the same argument I could ask why not go to Dell or Lenovo and ask them to help for this humane cause? MIT too is seeking publicity here. (duh!) How could Redhat which partly stepped out of Desktops because it couldn't work out the usability equation on its distributions suddenly come and provide an "education"*usable $100 laptop? To be a successful corporate doesn't mean imitating every corporate in the block by making flashy press releases. This is really negative if it doesn't work (and the odds aren't really good here.) I simply read that Redhat is vacillating looking at Ubuntu after a prior decision to address enterprise customers in a big way.
The last news item I would want to be laughing on news is "100 Somali children have been presented with $100 Laptops courtesy of MIT and Redhat technical teams." Sometimes everyone needs to state their goals and priorities right, and I don't think that's what this is about. In India, HCL came up with an almost $160 PC that wasn't a radical success as the population already had set its mind that INR 16-20K (roughly close to $500) was where they could afford a truly usable PC. They didn't want a mock-up PC that would crawl and slow them down even if it were affordable. They could still go to cafes and rent PC usage time for less. Practicability is sometimes lacking in University campuses as they cease to look at the real world.
The $100 Laptop. (Score:1)
I think Prof. Negroponte needs to actually spend some time in some of the poorer parts of the world and get real.