OLPC Keeps Sliding
January 4th, 2008
Intel Breaks Up with OLPC (Wired.com).
This is really tough to watch. I invested a lot of time in OLPC, knowing full well its potential benefits as well as the critical weaknesses. The Wired article just points out more of the obvious, that entrepreneurs with cash motivation can run circles around a nonprofit when it comes to marketing and innovation. (The defection of the display maker is a real problem — after all, they cannot milk the existing technology forever.)
Therein lies the problem. In my opinion, the OLPC project never intended to provided its member companies a big enough carrot. Had there been financial incentive, the money spent by those companies would have been serious investment dollars. As it is, that money is what it is…goodwill expense.
Negroponte is on record as saying the project is already a success — and who can argue, with all the new entrants vying for the emerging computer market. But maybe hindsight tells us it all could have been done much cheaper.
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