OLPC in trouble. Capitalism is an ugly system.

Nicholas Negroponde announced that the organization is laying off half of the staff due to economic difficulties. Basically what that means is that the OLPC laptop is not selling as much as it was expected and the organization did not take as many preorders as projected (or that some preorders where canceled due to some shady events....).

When OLPC was first announced everybody was talking about it and everybody wanted one. It had a open hardware/software approach that many people liked and the idea behind it was "free education for underprivileged kids of developing countries". Who could object to that? Some companies that discovered a new market maybe?

Capitalism is an ugly system. As soon as word got out, many big companies starting producing their own cheap netbooks and offering countries their solution to compete with the open architecture of OLPC. There were even stories that got out about bribing third world country officials for canceling OLPC orders and choose another solution of a certain company.

You think these kids would benefit from windows?

Lets hope though that this drawback will not be the end of OLPC as is. Negroponde is taking a shift to non free software approach. I wonder why? What there is to gain from installing a non free,closed operating system like windows on the OLPC? The kids certainly do not object to Linux. What about governments? Ahhhh, there you go. But why governments of developing countries object to free software? Think about it...

Who, actually, needs a netbook?

Netbooks is a fairly new term that describes sub-12” screen notebooks, with limited processing abilities. A little more than a year ago ASUS launched eeePC. A small factor 9” screen notebook that had one incredible characteristic. It was ridiculously cheaper than any other notebook on the market and especially compared to the ultra portables that cost more than 2000 $. Its success was beyond any analyst's expectation and it actually created a whole new market, the netbook market.

I myself find it to be a very nice gadget. But what is its market really? Who actually needs it? The road warriors need a powerhorse laptop to do their job. Using it to simply surf the net on the road, like in a cafe, is probably an overkill since not many people actually do that and, in addition, that need is covered by others means such as smart phones. Surfing the net on the couch is one thing, but who actually does that? Of course a netbook has many other abilities since it is a full blown computer able to play back music, videos, can edit documents and so on. These abilities are found everywhere else as well and people have other computers to do these jobs faster and more efficiently. So what is its purpose. It is certainly not to be a primary computer and maybe not even a second. It is more like a third computer type of product. Few people need a third computer though. So, I ask again: what is its market and its purpose as a product?

Netbooks are very-very cool gadgets and for what they are offering, they are very cheap and that is why they are very successful. Beyond having a very cool, do it all, 10” screen, underpowered, cheap laptop for no particular reason I cannot explain it. Struggling to think of some use for it the only think I can come up with is having it next to the bed for some bedtime net surfing in the comfort of my bed. But does this worth the 300 $ I have to spend for that. I guess not but, since, it is actually more of a gadget and less of an actual computer or work tool it does not matter. I am sure that many would have found very handy uses for it but they do not define a raging new market and I am talking millions of units sold here. So what everybody else are doing with it? I still cannot answer the question.