Filed under: Assignment
The One Laptop Per Child Foundation re-introduces an idea that Sam Walton had successfully demonstrated is possible many years ago: consumers are drawn to more affordable prices. Make a product affordable for a group and the buyers will come.
This is only part of the mission of the One Laptop Per Child Foundation; the OLPC does not mention the word “market” on its website. The OLPC project is an endeavor that attempts to decrease the digital divide against students in countries that cannot afford computing equipment. The project and the organization were brought to the world’s attention at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland in 2005. Funded by organizations like AMD, eBay, Nortel Networks, and the like, it was bound to be a huge success: enticing prices that governments around the globe would agree with and profit to boot.
The idea is outstanding. However, it may be that the capitalist actions taken by Intel in pursuing this “untapped market” as described by its own website is the best way to get those computers out there. As OLPC Project founder stated, the list price of the laptops is expected to decrease when the organization receives more orders for laptops. Intel may be onto something here by entering the competition. It is tough to read that OLPC was taking losses earlier when it was selling the laptops for less than they were costing to make, and hoping that orders would increase to make up and bring down the cost of production. The school systems should reap the benefit of this competition; the prices are driven down and this may free up more money to buy a larger volume of laptops.
The Boston Globe reported in 2007 that as the nonprofit organization was having difficulty lowering the cost of the laptops while gaining profits, Intel and Asus Computer International of Taiwan were already introducing their own cheap laptops. Asus and Intel’s move into the “nonprofit” business of selling affordable laptops to developing countries for use in school systems creates a competitive market that I think will result in the collapse of the OLPC, but not its vision.
What OLPC did was shed the light on an untapped market of buyers. The issue with OLPC and its vision is that it is primarily an altruistic one, at least at its front, whereas Asus and Intel are primarily for profitability. OLPC has “rejected the idea of selling its laptops as a retail product in affluent nations” (Boston Globe), whereas the larger corporations have not. Asus has already waded into the market of richer communities, where its marketers see a large market of users. I believe that while the endeavor and the purpose of One Laptop Per Child is upstanding and promotes a global village and a step forward in the state of education for developing countries, maybe it should be left to corporations and competition should be encouraged to drive prices down and make laptops more available to those countries. The best way is to let the manufacturers compete.
Bray, Hiawatha. “Cheap laptop as money maker.” Boston Globe: Technology. November 14, 2007.
”One Laptop per Child.” Wikipedia entry. Can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child
Stern, Joanna. “Intel vs. OLPC: A Battle of Good Wills.” Laptop Magazine, April 24, 2007. Can be found at http://archive.laptopmag.com/features/Intel-vs-OLPC-Battle-of-Good-Wills.htm
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