OLPC asks laptop makers to copy its designs
By Michael W. Jones
Very few business models are based upon asking the competition to copy your products. However, the OLPC foundation has now done exactly that, and sees it as a path to success.
Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) foundation spoke recently at the TED 2009 conference. He said that the foundation’s goal, putting a laptop in the hands of every child, would be best served if the foundation produces something that everyone else copies, according to a CNET article. This copying would allow the idea to spread, bringing the foundation closer to its goals.
Negroponte indicated that the copying process had already started judging by the increasing popularity of low-cost “netbook” computers being built by a number of manufacturers worldwide. The OLPC founder said, “They didn’t copy the right things from us, but they exist. We had to build the first laptop because no one else would do it.”
Negroponte said “it’s sort of a tragedy” that the concept of the $100 laptop in the hands of every child has morphed into a commercial venture as large as the netbook. He hopes that the release of the original design by the OLPC foundation would lead to more production of the OLPC machine, perhaps to as many as five to six million OLPC laptops per year.
When the OLPC laptop was first envisaged, the foundation’s original design became known as the “$100 laptop” (that was the target price) but as time went on the unit price nearly doubled. The economies of scale that would allow the $100 price tag did not materialize because not enough of the machines were being built, even though the cost of commercial low-end laptops continued to drop partially as a result of the OLPC concept.
The original OLPC idea had some validity and probably still does. It certainly spawned the netbook, an idea that is still growing, as represented by a more crowded netbook marketplace every day. If the release of the original OLPC designs could spur a marketplace already tantalized by the netbook, perhaps the original vision of the OLPC is one step closer to reality.
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February 9th, 2009
They could not sell their design so now they want everyone to use the design. No thank you. I bought a used 64 laptop for less than the xo and did not have to get a second laptop for someone else.