IT is a soulless business. So when the chance comes to make a difference to something more than the bottom line, it's no surprise that enthusiasm can border on fanaticism. We've seen rather too much over-egged greenery, but the cause of educational computing for the developing world continues to excite. It's certainly excited Red Hat and AMD, who have been keen to help with the One Laptop Per Child project.
A noble cause, and one that the organisation's chairman, Nicholas Negroponte, has pursued with a zeal bordering on the religious. Although part of the plan is to squeeze margins down to nanotech thinness, it would be wrong and unhelpful to ignore the commercial implications: indeed, the OLPC organisation has been clear to say that the computer is to be purchased, not given away or subsidised. Other tech players such as Intel and Microsoft also see this as a legitimate market. The chipmaker has its own range of affordable PCs marketed under its World Ahead programme, including the Classmate, which competes head on with the OLPC machine.
And that's upset Negroponte — especially when he claims that Intel is using some of its notoriously robust marketing tactics. Intel responds that it's been working on options for the developing world for some time: we say that if the OLPC was closer to its target $100 price than the current $170-odd, then Intel's $200-plus choice would be of far less consequence. And while Red Hat's reuse of 85 percent of OLPC code for its Linux Classmate OS may seem irksome, isn't that the entire point of open source?
One of the mainstays of IT innovation has always been that competition leads to better and cheaper products. If Negroponte has faith in his device to deliver what he claims it will, then competition from Intel, and any other hardware maker, should be seen as just that. One Laptop per Child does not have to mean one design for all. Western consumers expect choice, and we should expect nothing less for the developing world.
Talkback
There is price dumping going on. Intel is not planning to ship millions of their small computers at $180, but just tens of thousands.
Intel is not advocating mass marketing of cheap laptops, what Intel wants, is for countries to purchase just tens of thousands of Classmate units which Intel will discount at their half production price. Supposedly Intel's advice is for countries to test a few thousand laptops before committing to OLPC or any other million-order mass production deal.
Intel might as well just give out 10 thousand normal laptops to each country as a bribe for them not to invest in the mass production and mass deployment of the first generation OLPC XO-1 computers.
The truth is OLPC has developped much too many revolutionnary innovations including power managment, screen, Wi-Fi Mesh range, optimized Linux software and a DCON system that can turn off the main processor most of the time during non-processor intensive tasks. All these revolutionnary technologies Intel provides non of in the Classmate, all Intel wants desperately is to prevent OLPC from getting enough orders to be able to start the mass production of its first generation product.
There are two companies with the lions share of essential technology which impacts on the future of us all. Neither of them tolerate healthy competion in the market place. Neither of them are held to account for this abuse of their dominant position.
Hence we are denied both choice and a voice in how that future will be shaped.
Shame on them and those who allow it.
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