Competition

Even though it is an education project, the prospect of a market for 100 million laptops is drawing the attention of major players who have not yet gotten on board. Intel and Microsoft originally laughed about the project, with Bill Gates even commenting, "get a real laptop." But when Microsoft produced a revamped cell phone as its proposed alternative for countries that have ground to make up in the field of IT in schools and then recommended an ultra-mobile PC (UMPC), it was the critics of Microsoft who had the last laugh at the software vendor's knee-jerk reaction. After all, the UMPC has a short run time, is the very embodiment of poor ergonomics, and costs 1000 euros. It cannot compete with the XO.

As the OLPC project increasingly proved to be a success, people began to take it more seriously. Bill Gates himself jumped on the bandwagon in December when he announced that he wanted to have Windows on the XO. Negroponte was quick to respond winking that the SD slot had only been installed for Microsoft to begin with; after all, Windows needs more than a gigabyte of memory, whereas the XO only has 512 MB. Windows on the XO was dead on arrival.

Sugar does not have a file manager, but rather a journal that lists changes and files in chronological order.

In contrast, Intel is taking the matter seriously. The chip manufacturer has come up with its own education project it calls World Ahead. The project's notebook was named Eduwise but is now called Classmate and is expected to cost 400 US dollars. Classmate is somewhat smaller than the XO with a seven-inch display (800 x 480, 133 dpi), one gigabyte of flash memory instead of a hard drive, and a Celeron M (900 MHz). The laptop is expected to run for four hours from the battery. Windows XP Embedded is the operating system used, but Linux will also be possible. Among others, China, Brazil, India, Mexico, and Nigeria have showed interest. Brazil has a two-pronged strategy and is currently testing both XOs and classmate prototypes. Intel says that serial production has already begun.

Intel will be financing its World Ahead program with a total of one billion dollars over the next few years. The goal is to bring nations closer to current technology and high-speed Internet access as well as to provide training for teachers and schoolchildren. The company has not, however, explained how the money would be distributed specifically and what the nations will have to pay for themselves.

As the example of Intel shows, the OLPC is obviously motivating companies with great assets to help improve the lot of countries with insufficient IT infrastructure. These developments are positive as long as they are coupled to an educational program and are not merely intended to pour hardware over these countries as from a cornucopia. These projects cannot be compared to others like India's Simputer or China's Longmeng with Godson processors, which are currently not viable. They, too, wish to bring the digital world to areas not currently covered, but their focus is purely commercial.

Conclusions

Those behind One Laptop per Child, especially Nicholas Negroponte, are apparently pulling the right strings. This education project aims to provide as many schoolchildren as possible in developing and emerging nations with the most inexpensive laptops available. The project has gone an incredibly long way in a short time. Despite all the obstacles, criticism, and unanswered questions, the OLPC has the potential to bring a large number of people into contact with modern forms of communication and impart knowledge. The XO laptops already shipped out are a clear sign of what can be done when visionaries, global firms, and international political organizations work together.

When it comes to education, the OLPC has learned from the mistakes made in other projects, especially when new technology becomes the responsibility of teachers. OLPC board member Michail Bletsas recently stated in an interview on the Austrian radio during the 3GSM, "I believe it is a cost-efficient way of effecting change within the educational sector by getting children to teach themselves something instead of basing everything on the traditional approach of building schools and training teachers – which can take generations." For a purchase price of 175 US dollars, the OLPC has come up with a laptop and a user interface that schoolchildren in industrial countries would also benefit from. In addition, the little computer is full of innovations: the dual-mode display works indoors and in broad daylight, and no other notebook offers mesh networking.

The next few steps will determine the success of the project. The XO laptop and its software will have to be made ready for serial production, and purchase agreements will have to be signed with pilot states for millions of laptops. The discussions about running XO laptops with Windows and selling machines to U.S. schools have little to do with an educational project for developing countries. This shows the enormous difficulties OLPC has in getting sufficient orders. The project seems to be at a crucial point. The future only looks bright for OLPC if the organisation manages to maintain the pace ist has shown during the last two years. (translated by Craig Morris) / (jr)

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