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Negroponte on Netbooks

Feb 8th

Posted by Zealot

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onelaptop2_wideweb__470x342,0 I have been a big fan of Nicholas Negroponte for many years now. I followed his visionary work at MIT Designs and then his attempts to bring his philosophies and talents to the world beyond academia and the digiteria. I have immense respect for his ability to see technology as a force for good and his tireless drive to not only make the world a better place but to help us all envision it with him. Sure he has had as many colossal failures as he had successes, but he is one of the few giants in technology and design that has always worked for the common good above lucre and better, he never gives up. Each setback just makes his next idea further outside the box, more grandiose and wide-ranging, more idealistic. The world needs more people like him, willing to run where venture capitalists fear to tread.

Mr. Negroponte was at TED this weekend (for the first time in three years) giving an update on his controversial OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) project. During his talk, he made the loaded statement that the current Netbook craze was started by his desire to produce a cheap, reliable laptop for the children of the third world. When you look at the timing of the original OLPC drive and the appearance of the Asus Eee, it is very clear he is right. The Eee was originally supposed to be a simple notebook for kids and other people who couldn’t afford or use a full-price laptop’…clearly taking a page from the OLPC’s mission statement. When the Netbook became the darling of the tech-set all that high mindedness changed, but it was ORIGINALLY meant to be an educational tool, not a notebook replacement. Now, Mr. Negroponte says Netbooks account for 50 percent of the laptop market, or soon will.

So how does he REALLY feel about Netbooks taking the OLPC concept and making a small fortune from it? According to Mr. Negroponte:

They didn’t copy the right things from us, but they exist.

He decried the fact that the commercial Netbooks are all profit driven, having none of the altruism that was part of the original OLPC and announced his plan to combat that with the next generation of OLPC products. Following the moves by such companies as VIA, the next OLPC will be released as an open source reference design, to be produced and possibly improved upon by any number of companies.

This seems to me a smart move, as it will free the entire OLPC movement from lingering suspicions that Negroponte was out to find some way to cash into it. Also, it may make up for one of the major deficiencies of Negroponte’s stewardship…poor execution. This will be especially true if the dual touchscreen concept that has been floated around actually becomes the new OLPC. That is a design that will take supply chain muscle to bring into being at a price still suited to the third world. Negroponte is a thinker and a visionary, not a manufacturer. Time to leave the nuts and bolts to the professionals and see what he can do about making the OLPC design bulletproof and saving the world, in that order.

(Source – Ethan Zuckerman)

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Zealot (476 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).

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  • @ike:

    I linked to a series of his articles on this, which really do put the economics of it in perspective.

    Yes, I visited the link, but I wasn't about to click on each story to try to find the piece of information I needed. A link to one story I might read; otherwise, it's like a bunch of search results in Google, and I didn't have time to look at them all. ;-)

    As to “selling up” the computers… if you were barely surviving in San Diego living on $20,000/year, and someone across the world decided that your $20,000/year subsistence-level existence would be enriched by having a $25,000 hybrid vehicle for your commute, would you drive the car for a marginal benefit? Or would you “sell it up” to acquire other life improvements that would be more pressing for you?

    Got it. You're talking about reselling the device; I thought you were talking about up-selling (the practice of trying to get somebody to buy a more expensive device), which didn't make sense in this context. Maybe "selling it up" is some local vernacular I hadn't seen before.

    Anyway, yes, the potential for reselling may be there, but so what? If it gets the people something they need more, what's the problem? It won't have the intended results, perhaps, but it may still have positive results. I assume the results wouldn't be as bad as giving a homeless guy $20 for food only to have him spend it on booze.

    Also, I assume they aren't just throwing the laptops at the children and leaving, but giving them (and ideally their parents) instructions on what the laptop can be used for and why it's a good thing in the long run.

    Steve
  • I linked to a series of his articles on this, which really do put the economics of it in perspective.

    Certainly, you need something in the schools to read the CDs, making the information available.

    As to "selling up" the computers... if you were barely surviving in San Diego living on $20,000/year, and someone across the world decided that your $20,000/year subsistence-level existence would be enriched by having a $25,000 hybrid vehicle for your commute, would you drive the car for a marginal benefit? Or would you "sell it up" to acquire other life improvements that would be more pressing for you?

    That's the economic question posed, and the Give-1-Get-1 OLPC program proves the point. If it costs $400 for a well-intentioned American to get one, knowing someone in an impoverished nation also gets one, then the selling point for OLPCs on the black market would be around $250-$325. You could make a healthy living buying them from poor families happy to sell them for $200, and ship them to people in other countries who want such a device and want a better price than $400.

    Flooding a market with a resource that is overvalued for its purpose, and at a price point that is well below what *others* would pay elsewhere, creates a market vacuum that will draw those OLPCs out of the areas intended and into areas where they are desired.

    I know that goes against the whole spirit of the program, but Negroponte's vision only works if one suspends laws of economics and of human nature.
  • Steve Mueller
    @Ike:

    The OLPCs would have a value representing more than a year’s income for a family, making it harder to quash the economic urge to sell them up.

    I'm not sure what "sell them up" means here, but the OLPC program was doing a "buy one, donate one" program, so it wouldn't cost (some) families anything.

    I believe OLPC was also trying to get governments to invest in buying the PCs for the people, not making the families buy them.

    Yes, there are other more pressing needs, but since when does that matter? We have lots of animal rights groups in the U.S. despite people starving all over the world. But who are we to tell people where their good works should be focused?

    Atanu Dey is a very bright Indian economist, and he recommends that far more could be done by putting Wikipedia and other resources on CDs and distributing them to families. Even if they are only updated every year or two, it would be far less expensive and provide nearly the same value.

    And what does Dey think those CDs will be played on? Do those families already have PCs?

    Steve
  • Mr. Negroponte can't be questioned for his motives or passion, but many have properly criticized him for trying to swat gnats with bulldozers.

    While the world might indeed scare up enough resources to bring those net-books to every child, there are so many other basic needs that are more important. The OLPCs would have a value representing more than a year's income for a family, making it harder to quash the economic urge to sell them up.

    Atanu Dey is a very bright Indian economist, and he recommends that far more could be done by putting Wikipedia and other resources on CDs and distributing them to families. Even if they are only updated every year or two, it would be far less expensive and provide nearly the same value.
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