[ale] OLPC latest blows

Daniel Howard dhhoward at comcast.net
Fri Jan 4 10:00:54 EST 2008


http://www.news.com/8301-13579_3-9839806-37.html?tag=nefd.top

Not only has the CTO of OLPC resigned to commercialize her OLPC 
inventions, but now Intel has left the OLPC board, assumedly so it can 
pursue the ClassBook and other low cost PCs.  Figure on serious 
competition for the OLPC sooner rather than later.  Negroponte has 
demonstrated a lack of marketing savvy: why would he even think he could 
insist that Intel stop working on competing products or helping 
competitors like Asus...standard practice is to negotiate a delay in 
competitive offering, not prevent it altogether.  So now I'm beginning 
to think the OLPC won't pan out after all, even though it is a very 
laudable effort and lots of good new thinking came from it.  Great ideas 
killed by market/business issues seems to be the rule rather than the 
exception these days...

Hang onto thse OLPCs guys, they may be collectible someday; my wife is 
keeping all our old calculators for just that reason; at least they 
don't take up as much space as her other collectibles.

Daniel

-- 
Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Georgia Open Source Education Foundation



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