I can easily imagine American execs sincerely believing that everybody and his brother has extra $300 to shell out for a laptop or mobile device. But the Chinese ones obviously have a huge internal market nearby with a wide income distribution that would gladly accommodate no-frills gadgets at low price points. So how come seemingly the only people out there trying to shoot for under $100 price point on a decent general purpose computer is a Western NGO with the bright idea of restricting functionality and sales in accordance to some nanny do-gooder ordnung plan (heil Negraponte - sieg heil) instead of just making a good product for everybody to use as they see fit? If the technology is in place, why aren’t the Chinese companies jumping in on this?
So, uh, you object to the whole concept of One Laptop per Child, or what?
And no, I have no idea why some Chinese group has not taken on the role of ‘do-gooder’ that you seem to be sneering at.
It’s been awhile since I looked at OLPC, but didn’t that basically blow up due to internal issues? Also, weren’t the laptops costing more than $100, so selling them at $100 was a loss and viewed as a form of charity?
I have wondered about a similar question myself. In particular I have wondered why no one has made a similar product on commercial lines. The OLPC laptop was a fantastic product which was perhaps the best computing device ever made for kids. Even today I don’t think there is netbook which offers all the features that the OLPC device had. Forget $100 I think the laptop was a bargain for $200 or even more. But its natural customers weren’t children in third world countries whose schools lack even the basic amenities and whose teachers don’t really have the skillls to use computers in education. However it could have been a massive hit if targetted at school children in first-world countries. And eventually as it achieved economies of scale and established itself, it could gradually have spread to third world countries through the kind of governnment-sponsored programs that OLPC focussed on.
In a nutshell: the OLPC had a fantastic product but a lousy marketing strategy.
The Netbook was developed by people who worked on OLPC or were scared by it.
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/wireless/magazine/17-03/mf_netbooks
The first time I heard of this project, maybe 15 years ago, Newt Gingrich was touting its virtues (His idea was that the government could use its buying power to get a scaled-back $100 laptop to every child who needed one). It’s one of only two times I ever agreed with him. He’s not exactly the model of a “do-gooder.”
I’m not sure I understand the topic to be debated, or what the Nazi references are meant to convey. Could the OP clarify the role of Negraponte and Nazism in the question?
As far as I understand, someone had an idea and developed in a way that he felt it should be developed and that the person in question wasn’t from China.
There isn’t a market for it…yet. The people who $100 laptops will help most are children. Unfortunately, women and children in the developing world are usually not in control of cash to buy the things that they need to succeed. This is why poverty hits women and children so harshly- men can buy the medicine, they can afford a bit of meat now and then, etc. But women and children don’t usually have those options, so they do what they can with what they’ve got.
Cell phones have changed Africa. But if you see a family with one cell phone, it’s a sure thing that the cellphone belongs to the man. Cell phones took off because they are useful to the people with the money to create a market. But until women have more control of financial resources, you simply are not going to be able to create that market for women no matter how useful your product is.
As a device for kids, the OLPC was much better than any netbook and also cheaper even at $200. It was smaller and much more robust with a spill-proof keyboard. The keyboard was designed for a child’s hands and the device also had a gamepad. Power consumption was very low and you could turn the backlighting off for great sunlight legibility making for a great e-book reader. And of course it was fun and colorful in a way that most netbooks aren’t.
I am pretty sure that if it was available for sale in regular stores in rich countries, parents would have bought millions of them for their kids. Many schools would have also purchased them and it would have been a great device in the class room and particularly for field trips.
And big sales in the US would have made it much easier to eventually promote the device in the third world. Economies of scale would bring the cost perhaps down to the proposed $100. Success in the US would also increase the credibility of the device making third-world governments more willing to sponsor them. The open source community would have created lots of neat educational software for the laptop
It’s a real pity that the Negroponte had a dogmatic non-commercial vision for the product so that it was only aimed at third world kids through governments. If the OLPC had been more flexible, I think their laptop would have been a gigantic success and eventually transformed education around the world.
Frankly, another part of the reason that Chinese businessmen aren’t that excited about $100 laptops is that we more-or-less already have them. See this netbook, for example: http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_020W029753250001P?vName=Computers%20&%20Electronics&cName=Laptops&sName=Netbooks&sid=KDx20070926x00003a&ci_src=14110944&ci_sku=020W029753250001P
Not a great bit of hardware, but not terrible for a kid’s first computer, either.
I checked into the Sylvania model. It was actually selling for less than $100 on black friday. The user reviews were very bad. Apparently the device was very slow and didn’t support flash. Apparently, people have minimum expectations even for rock bottom prices.
What is more important is to create universal internet access. That is going to be harder when some countries are actively fighting it. They don’t want to lose control of the information that their subjects receive.
That is what I’ve read too. Cell phones penetrated African markets in a massive way; much like India and China a few years back.
I have to say this is one of the most surreal rants / critiques I have ever read. Low cost laptops for the poor generates a Nazi reference???
Anyway.
Mmmm, Even sven you’ve got quite the habit of sweeping generalisation. Senegalese market ladies could teach you a thing or two about women’s status…
But in any case, rather than wishful thinking about transforming other peoples’ cultures that the NGO crowd so adore, I’d rather suggest that expanding the cell phone market - which in Africa has become truly amazing I concur - is less about women controlling more financial resources (which I have nothing against I add, I simply take a dim view of making social engineering a pre-condition of growth) and more about driving more economic growth in SSA.
And that is about removing the horrid regulation and rent-seeking that dominates the continent.
Stating that you’re simply not going to have a market w/o changing women’s status is tripe. In most of SSA I absolutely concur that women’s status should change and evolve, but that is not a pre-condition to these things as such.
Well, absent evidence, Sven’s sweeping statement that the status of women in sub-Saharan Africa must change before markets can evolve is no different than your sweeping statement that the status of women changing is not a pre-condition to markets evolving there.
What evidence would you like?
The vast expansion of CellTelin West Africa? (that’d be a major cell operator in SSA, that vastly expanded its market). I haven’t seen any noticeable transformation of West African market ladies wider social standing, but the expansion of CelTel and similar providers tell me markets are evolving at light speed, but I don’t see the women’s status issue moving at that speed.
Ghanian platforms for market-lady cell-phone trading?
Tell me what the expected evidence is, I’ll be happy to have us dig in.
You are over thinking things.
It is an absolute fact that women and children in developing countries have less economic empowerment to access the things that will improve their lives. It is not “social engineering” to point out that they get sicker more often, get medicine less often, eat less protein, go to school less, have fewer opportunities to travel, own less personal property and have few chances to find work in stable formal labor markets. It’s not a matter of "should we change this or not.’ This is just a fact. This of course doesn’t mean that women and children are helpless or are not empowered in some ways. But for the most part they don’t have a lot of cash.
You can’t sell stuff to people without cash. A laptop marketed towards children (which are often considered a woman’s personal financial responsibility) is going to be harder to market than a device that helps working men. There is no social comment in that.
I’m hardly over thinking anything.
I question that:
(i) changing womens status is the route that creates this market
(ii) that your sweeping assertion re women, cell-phone ownership and the market holds true across the board.
You made an assertion the market isn’t going to be there w/o women’s status change. I call that social engineering thinking: notably, But until women have more control of financial resources, you simply are not going to be able to create that market for women no matter how useful your product is.
I entirely disagree. It has been done and is being done. Part of the equation is growing the market for more wealth all around. Part is by marketing perception of need. We do it all the time. That’s the problem with development people they think society. I think market.
You are jumping to conclusions. I never said anything about changing the status of women, nor do I think it makes sense to “change the status of women” so they can afford $100 laptops. i am illustrating why if you want to give children access to laptops, it makes more sense to work through governments than through the free market.
Why you might want to give children access to laptops, and if that is a useful thing, is another question entirely. Personally I’m not really convinced that this particular program is all that useful.
What “sweeping generalizations about women” do you disagree with? If you know of a country in sub-saharan Africa where the women are going to school more, have better healthcare than, and make more money than men please let me know. Of course there are plenty of educated, successful, powerful women in sub-saharan Africa. And there are plenty more who are using what they have to improve their lives in ingenious ways. But that doesn’t change the fact that when people are poor, the women are even poorer.
They aren’t. Intel is trying to break into the market, and India is trying to create a sub $100 tablet. Chinese companies were making a $98 laptop several years ago.
http://archive.laptopmag.com/features/Intel-vs-OLPC-Battle-of-Good-Wills.ht
There is a booming market for low cost cars too, cars that cost 2-10k and can be bought by consumers in Brazil, China, India, etc. However I read the profits are only $200-300 per car sold to the makers, as opposed to the thousands that are made per luxury car sold in the west. So you need more bulk to make up for the lack of profit per item moved, and the profits on a $900 laptop sold in Europe are probably far higher than a $100 laptop sold in India. I don’t know when/if critical mass is reached and the market is big enough that making a small profit off of a cheap laptop is worth it to the private market.
I don’t know tons about economics, but I assume that is part of it. The market needs to be huge so that the tiny profits per item are worth it. Could be other factors too.
FWIW, there are tons of low cost device in the west that are about $150 or so. Ipod touches, e-readers, netbooks, tablets, etc. that are all getting close to the $100 mark and that can more or less function as personal computers.
You wrote: But until women have more control of financial resources, you simply are not going to be able to create that market for women no matter how useful your product is. I am taking issue with this.
You put that as a pre-condition (see above) for developing the market. I fundamentally disagree.
Well, that I agree with.
Again, I disagree. This is typical development thinking. And why development thinking has been a failure - as you have admitted - over the past 40 odd yrs in Africa.
Should it be useful to give African kids laptops, going through the Governments is a disaster in the making. Creating a market by classic market development (find the price point that can be met re physical production, market to that price point - create the demand - sell via most efficient private channels) is the path, just like the condoms experience.
Well there I agree, although it depends what the real aim is. If it’s back country village and mass laptops, that’s daft. If it is pushing computer access down further into the lower middle class or middle class in areas like small urban centres, that has utility.
Access to goods and spending. I disagree with your sweeping generalization there. We’ve been able to develop markets for material goods in the low-middle income range by not hooking ourselves on the “woe is the African woman who controls not” thinking and marketing to seduce her and if it is necessary, the man who may control the purse. Yes, access to money is a problem, your sweeping statement that if there is but one cellphone in a family it is the man I object to. The goods control is more nuanced in our market experience (although the problem esp. in Central to South in men pissing away their money on getting right pissed at the local bar, well that I grant readily, drunken sots).