Is One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Being Sabotaged?

Fellow blogger Andy Carvin at Learning.Now is reporting a strange anomaly in the One Laptop Per Child Initiative. Andy reports in "Dude, Where’s My Laptop?" that

By donating $400 to OLPC, a person would receive their own XO laptop, while a second one would be given to a child in the developing world. OLPC began taking orders in mid-November. They made it clear that most people would probably not receive their laptop in time for Christmas, but they would try to accommodate those who ordered on the very first day of the program.

Some lucky donors managed to receive their laptops in time for the holidays, but others, including myself, receive cryptic emails saying that the address we supplied for shipping was incorrect, and that we would have to submit a new address for a January delivery. On bulletin boards, discussion lists and Twitter, people grumbled but were generally forgiving.

But that was just the beginning of the problem. As reported by Ars Technica recently, the software used by OLPC’s fulfillment contractor had a glitch that caused perfectly correct addressed to appear incorrect, preventing FedEx from shipping the laptops. Making matters worse, when donors re-submitted their address or supplied a new one, the glitch would overwrite the new information and again supply FedEx with a nonexistent address. Moreover, they were unable to ship to PO Boxes - a fact that was never communicated to donors before they ordered.

While a group of volunteers began to document the potential causes of the delivery mess on a wiki, OLPCNews.com established a forum where users could vent their own experiences with the ordering process. The posts are filled with people who were clearly supporters of the initiative but now are questioning its competence, like this one, entitled Joke of the Year:

I’ve always been a supporter of programs that are aimed to eradicate poverty and help the poor. I’ve traveled extensively and lived in Africa and I grew up in China. While I was living in Ethiopia, I took up in the annual 10km run and raised $400 for the UNICEF.

Now I’m just very surprised by the lack of human touch of OLPC foundation. I’m not frustrated because I’m still very patient and hoping it will arrive one day. But this email reply from their support team is leaving me disappointed.

Please note that this reply from the support team was dated “Jan 17, 2008 2:29 PM”:
“We currently show that your laptop has been sent to the warehouse for shipping. You will be receiving an email notifying you when the laptop has been shipped along with a tracking number. If you live within the United States, you should receive your laptop no later than January 15, 2008. If you live in Canada, you should receive your laptop in the January/February 2008 timeframe.”

Their experiences mirror my own. While I was expecting delays, I was amazed and dismayed by the sheer disorganization of their customer service.

Given the threat that the OLPC program represents to vested interests, one cannot help but wonder whether this in fact is a "glitch" and not a wholesale effort to sabotoge the program.

I've spent many years in the software engineering field - far to many to believe that mailing list software such as this could be so complex or buggy to cause this kind of sustained havoc.

Is anyone else equally suspicious? This looks sufficiently suspicious to warrant an investigation into malicious behavior behind the scenes.

Conversion to Ubuntu

I'm a bit behind in the blog because I'm eating my own dogfood. The One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative is about to bust loose this year. Asus is releasing a low-cost, suped-up OLPC model that is going to start a tidal wave of activity. It is being sold at a $350 price point for a higher end model. I'll being talking a lot more about the revolutionary technologies this initiative is going to produce.

But more to the point I needed a laptop for work (my work needs are slightly more rigorous than the OLPC baseline) and I've been putting it off. Sunday a very tempting ad got me stoked to finally make a purchase but when I got to the store the sales-guy told me to reconsider the brand - the store was getting lots of returned merchandise related to it. So I shelled out an extra fifty and picked up a Toshiba that I'm right now converting from whatever Microsoft thing is on it to Ubuntu. Total cost for an industrial strength laptop these days ($600 ~ $700); within a month, a student worthy laptop will be $250 - $500 - every American student should be issued a new one every four grades or so. There's no excuse (and I mean none) that kids in Africa and South America will be computing while our students are held hostage to blackboard lectures. Schools need to budget for and instrument our teachers and classrooms with this stuff.

As for my progress - so far - so good. More later.

The Genius of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC)

The more I hear and read about the OLPC movement the more impressed I am. Taken at face value, it sounds like little more than a shopping trip that will result in yet another consumer age product that gets no exercise.

But that is simply not true and American public school educators better take heed. The OLPC movement is revolutionizing education around the globe with renewed hope and enthusiasm for technology just when this country has abandoned reason, hope, and progress.

The quality of the hardware, the brilliance of the machine to accommodate young children's needs in poor environments, and the nuance's of the software are very impressive.

A recent Daily Techno-babble blog (brought to my attention via reddit.com) lists 3 Reasons Why The OLPC Project has Microsoft Running Scared.

1. Millions of children running Linux.
All silliness aside, the prospect of an entire generation being introduced to computing in a world where Windows simply does not exist is downright horrifying to Microsoft executives. Lack of understanding as to the level of dedication on the part of the OLPC project has lead to 11th hour actions with Intel to rush a competitor to market running Windows. Unfortunately as proposed this Microsoft-Intel version of the ultra-low-cost laptop seems to be not only pricing out significantly higher than the projected $100 (or even the more realistic number of $175) for the OLPC laptop but is also facing stiff resistance due to the very perception that running Windows raises the long term costs beyond what developing nations can support. The bottom line is that the huge potential market penetration of millions of Linux-based laptops can turn the tide against Windows in not just the education markets but also in the broader corporate world as these children grow into adulthood.

2. Windows developers are taking notice.
Now that the OLPC project is really starting to make progress many developers are starting to take notice. Generally there is a strong feeling “on the ground” that Linux is really starting to become not just a server option but an option on mobile, desktop, and the ultra-portable laptop markets. The OLPC project brings the numbers to the table but the efforts on polishing the development tools over the last few years have finally begun to pay off. With other similar operating systems such as Mac OSX beginning to pull market share from Microsoft alongside Linux many forward thinking development teams are starting to see the writing on the wall; start working with Linux now, or suffer later when the broader markets make the jump. Bottom line is that Microsoft will have a hard time wooing developers back onto Windows once they realize that Linux is where the action is at.

3. OLPC is breaking the cost rules.
As many have noticed with the recent Dell Ubuntu Linux offerings, the so-called “Microsoft Tax” seems to be about $50 per system for machines shipped in large quantities. To folks in the developed world this does not sound like an unreasonable amount of money, especially when a single copy sells for $199 (or more). In developing nations even $50 is simply far too much for these users to consider paying in addition to the hardware costs. This situation has generated a significant increase in both piracy and governmental pressures in these parts of the world prompting Microsoft into making some (reluctant) price concessions. That said, this is not news Microsoft shareholders want to hear. With Windows’s market penetration starting to flatten out thanks to Vista’s poor reception things are defiantly not looking good for Microsoft in the long run. Bottom line is that the OLPC project is targeting one of the last remaining growth markets for Microsoft’s products with a price point that is virtually impossible for Microsoft to compete with.

Couple this with the fact that Dell Computer's commercial home page now features Ubuntu, a beautiful, seamless and worthy of consideration (by the average user) Linux and I think we are witnessing a watershed event in computing.