The Death of OLPC

A Little Laptop With Big Ambitions

The short story is that just when the OLPC project was about to get off the ground, Microsoft and Intel recognized that their businesses would be threatened by competing technologies from the open source community (Linux) and AMD processors.

So they tightened up their belts and decided to give the third world a break. Microsoft is selling software packages that include the Windows OS and Microsoft Office for $3 in an attempt to undercut free software such as Linux and OpenOffice.

Intel, while sitting on the board of the OLPC project, developed their own laptop and made direct pitches to governments comparing their product to the OLPC. Conflict of interest? More like a knife in the back.

It’s simple as that. Microsoft and Intel have a pile of money that they can bleed off in order to ensure their products will retain their market dominance.

What really kills me though is that Intel still isn’t willing to bleed hard enough to bring their product down to $100, which even the OLPC project couldn’t achieve. Intel, a market leader in processors and a multibillion dollar company wasn’t willing to slash their prices in typical monopolistic behavior to drive the OLPC under. They don’t have to do that though, because they have the marketing people that are twisted enough to grab the laptop right out of the child’s hand. They’ll just convince governments to buy their more expensive product instead.

Microsoft is already eating a huge cost by just selling two major pieces of software for literally a hundredth of what they cost in the developed world. So why can’t Intel do the same? The OLPC is about $180 and the Intel product is between $230 and $300.

It’s a shame, anyway, because Intel is going to be pushing a non-profit organization out of existence while still probably making some money. The only losers are the children that these laptops were originally meant for. More expensive laptops mean less that can actually be purchased by the developing world.