Individual sale?

Make it for us, too

There is a constant chorus of voices asking for a version of the OLPC to be sold in the Western world at a higher price with the profits being use to fund the distribution of more OLPCs in the target areas.

A price point that is often mentioned is $300. There is a sign-up page at pledgebank.com where you can make a non-binding commitment to purchase the olpc laptop for $300 US, with the understanding that the additional money will fund machines for the third world. The pledge creators are trying to get 100,000 signups so that the commercial incentive will be worth the attention of the olpc project; keep in mind that currently olpc has a small staff dealing directly with large foundations and national governments, so it will take a great many individuals to make enough impact to be worth the time this would take from olpc's other funding initiatives. Obviously, pledgebank has no affiliation with olpc, and there are no endorsements or legal burdens assumed or implied by any of this. Please don't sign up if you are not serious, though. --Charlie Brooks

This could be done by spinning off a separate charitable organization to engage in the manufacture and sale of these devices. Ideally, there would be some physical differences as well so that OLPCs from the target area cannot be economically transformed into sellable ones.

Suggested modifications for commercial model

• Grey colored case similar to most laptops
• Different shape to the case to make it slimmer (lower-volume plastics are expensive)
• Keyboard marked for any European language that uses a Latin or Cyrillic script
• Integrated type II compact flash slot, intended to provide larger storage capacity for westerners. Sell w/o flash card so people buy their own CF storage. CF slot should only be exposed when the screen/lid is open, but you should be able to close the lid and leave the CF in place.
• ExpressCard[1] slot, placed in the same under-lid position as the suggested CF slot could be included in far-future versions. Or just the USB2 part of ExpressCard could be used sooner (omitting the PCI Express interface[2]).
• Under-lid USB2 port with a cut-out that lets you leave a flash device in-place when the laptop closes. A 9x24x45 (DxWxL) mm recess will hold the popular smaller sticks while a 12x30x65 mm recess should hold even full-sized USB sticks. Either next to the current touchpad or along the top edge of the keyboard are good locations.
• Easy opening case to get at the innards. Westerners will tinker and service their own devices. (but then the laptop is not as water & dust resistant)
• Package it with a power brick instead of the cranking pedal

Why omit the cranking pedal? The ability to charge the machine without access to an electrical outlet is one of its unique features that makes the device attractive compared to run-of-the-mill Celeron laptops that are quickly dropping into the $300-$400 range. - Jim Kneuper

Sell them! Make them a symbol of global activism

I suggest that the decision not to sell these to the general public be reconsidered. Sales of these laptops could help fund their global (charitable) distribution. For a purchase price of $200, consumers would actually be buying two computers - one to own/use and one for a needy child somewhere in the world. Among first world consumers, these laptops could become quite popular as a meaningful symbol of global activism. Widespread usage of the devices would, in turn, fuel innovation, enhance infrastructure and make the devices that much more useful to the global community for which they were originally intended.

-- suggested by Don Ferris, San Diego, CA

Sell in open market and use royalty to fund free laptops to poor children: I don't understand why OLPC doesn't want to sell in open markets, and why the manufacturing contract has to be exclusive to specific manufacturer(s). By doing this, OLPC is not unleashing the power of the markets. Such a sound concept as $100 laptop, when complemented by the market, will work exponentially well. I suggest a system where the design is made close to open source, and any manufacturer can use the design, and they can make improvements. However, the manufacturers should agree to submit any design or function improvements to the MediaLabs, in return for the original design. The MediaLabs should collect royalty as a percentage of sales, and use it to fund free or subsidized laptops for children of poor countries. [3]

-- Subhas Chilumula, Rutherford, NJ, USA.

Terrific idea! I'd buy one for $200 in a minute. If this idea could be more widely floated (Tim O'Reilly, you listening?), I'm sure the response would be very strong.

-- Tim Lynch, T-burg, NY

I had this same idea this morning while listening to the NPR story about the laptop program. I could easily see buying one at $200 with the knowledge that I was also buying another for a child elsewhere. The one hole that I see in the current plan is that marketing these commercially in the U.S. and other well developed countries wouldn't be enough. I think that to really give the program a chance a rollout within the poor in the U.S./Europe would give a big boost in cost reduction (more laptops less cost) and it would provide for greater addoption and awareness. There are plenty of places within the U.S. and Europe that could benefit from a program like this.

--Nick Acks, Baltimore, MD

I came here to submit exactly this idea. Pay two, get one! I feel it is important that the OLPC hardware is freely available on the market at low price. If not there will immediately a black market being established, where the hardware is sold at much more than 200$.

The OLPC Laptop can be more than consumer electronics. It serves very well as client device for distributed applications even in large companies or public institutions. I were proud to deliver those applications to my customers.

-- Dominik Dahl, Tunisia

Same idea... With a twist. Make an open market version to distinguish it from the OLPC version so that when an OLPC computer DOES come up on an auction site it is immediately recognizable as such. The last I saw the OLPC unit cost was running around $138. Make the open market version $500 and put a couple of SDIO or CF slots on it in place of one of the USB ports. 802.11g and blueetooth would turn it into a device that can connect right in my world. I have been actively looking for a rugged thin client computer with no moving parts. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Keep the hand crank. It is an asset, not a liability.

-- Mark Stewart, Omaha, NE

Agree with all posters above. Demand for the laptop in affluent parts of the world will be huge too, because, lets face it, we are addicted to gadgets, and this is the coolest one to come along since the powerbook. This demand is a double edged sword though. Buy 2 (or more! I'd pay $300+ for this) get 1 is a great concept, but what if demand from the affluent outstrips supply? the "black" (I prefer the word open - the first world have been trying to smash the concept of democracy/free trade into the heads of the third world for centuries now, they can't rightly turn around and complain, using the sinister term "black" market when the third world finally does exactly what they have been suggesting all this time) market scenario is, unfortuntely, a highly plausible one. On the other hand, a larger user base of developers would mature the software platform faster, and if the laptop does eventually get connected to backbone "in the wild" instead of just a local ad hoc network, knowledge transfer can happen in a more open way.

-- Ben Tobias, Australia

The $200 dollar open market version idea is fantastic. So is the idea for a serial number as stated below. I agree that there should be a way to tell them apart. The open market version should sport different colors, slight, but noticable differences in the outer shell, maybe few special markings, and perhaps a different type of serial number than the original OLPC version. These special laptops could be produced in limited numbers so as not to produce too big of a demand on the manufacturers. At that price it would be an impulse buy, especially for us techies and poor college students. I would probably open the thing up and mod the heck out of it.

-- Ulysses Rodrigues, United States, Ca

I think that the only way of avoiding a violent "black market" for olpc laptops is to saturate the market quickly, at least within each region. Offering them to everyone and not just children is certainly one of the key steps for avoiding envy, but having large organisations purchase large amounts and dispersing them for free is The major factor I think. The trick is to lower the perceived value to a point where it is not worth stealing them. -- Simon Vogt, UK

I agree with the others you should sell them or make them avaiable to the open public but my reason isn't about how the money they could make could help fund the project. My reason is that you may get a lot of feed back from computer modders. Many college students and tech geeks love to mod and hardware hack devices such as these. I'm sure a lot of good could come out of such mods on the laptop like how to make them better and/or cheaper. If many people waste there time turning the xbox into a linux computer. I'm sure they will have tons of fun with this. --- Nicholas Fugett, United States, CA

Don't sell them

There should be written in big letters at the laptop: "Not for Sale" "please report to email, tel.nr,..."

If there is a commercial version it should have a different shape, different color, different motherboard size... If it is not possible to buy this laptop or even parts of this laptop legaly it should be easier to find stolen laptops. There should be a database of MAC adresses of stolen laptops.

The CPU should have a different color than comercial available CPUs.

Write everywhere in lots of languages: "If you buy or sell this computer or parts of this computer you will go to jail for 20 years".

(Rebuttal)

On the other hand, finding and punishing a thief in a country loosely governed by competing warlords is not practical at all. The only practical way to prevent a black/grey market of these is to make them available to people who want to buy them.

More important than anything else mentioned here is the fact that there are men in some of the target countries for these laptops who will happily go into a village five minutes after the laptops are delivered, slaughter every person there, and then take the laptops to resell the LCDs and anything else they can salvage to the next people over. It happens with food care packages, a laptop won't be an exception. Also realize that the adults will want these too, and so you'll see people taking the laptops from their children and going to the nearest big city to sell them so they can afford food.

In the near term, the best answer is simply to sell these only to countries with governments capable of enforcing law, like China and India. Those two countries alone have enough children to keep the factories busy for a decade. Sadly, the children most in need of these (Africans, South Americans) are the ones who will be the hardest to serve.

Anyways, the best way to mitigate the theft of these machines from the children is to make them available to adults, and then use proceeds from the sales to adults to fund sending more to the children. Once these things hit, the market is going to be huge. Every person on this planet is going to want one. The only way to make sure the kids who need them get them is to start thinking now about how to manufacture six billion.

Serial Number

The laptop should have a serial number. Maybe the mac-address is ok. If the laptop makes a wifi connection it should send this serial numbers. If it is stolen it should be easy to find them again if there is a database with serial numbers of stolen laptops.

Btw. in South East Asia thefts aren't a big problem.

Social Context

Remember that most of the african countries have not yet been involved in the project.

The targeted community is very very far from being basic computer users. Start distributing devices first to those who already know the concept of a computer; students, public administration, companies administration. One Laptop per Child is the final goal, not the first step.

The whole concept need to be seen in the context of how networking and distribution of data is going to be performed. In the poorest countries, the ideas may need to be modified due to limited scope for immediate networking.

The role of charity will be a major driving force in distributing the hardware to the poorest individuals. Small companies and public institutions even in poor countries are capable of buying basic hardware.

For adults, with limited postal service or reliability, a major application of importance would be political and private communications. To provide privacy and delivery certification a publik key infrastructure is required. In some targeted countries authority wants to read, manipulate or intercept any communication. A policy is needed to cooperate with such authorities: Either not introduce means of communications in these areas or provide authorities with read/write access to all communications.

There will immedately established a black market where OLPC devices are sold. That means these devices will be valuable, even if they are given for free. Consequences are: widespread corruptions, laptops illegaly sold by schools to parents, laptops sold by parents. People express their "rights" to sell what is "given" to them. And the worst: Children robbed or otherwise forced to hand over the hardware. Think about the consequences, when providing value to the weakest. To assure the flawless implementation of this project first eliminate black market by establishing a legal market. Enforcements about buying/ownership or that only those appropriate could carry/operate will be overcome by criminals.

-- This is an edit of an original post of user Ma -- http://wiki.laptop.org/wiki/User:Ma -- see the link for original post.

An Artificial Shortage

The launch plans for the laptops are mainly via the governments of the individual countries involved.

This is creating an artificial shortage for the countries where private sector is the main driving force behind identifying and funding innovative technology to improve the skills of their own people.

I would like to take my own country South Africa as an example. Due to the extreme lack of skilled and computer literate people, many companies in South Africa have been trying and failing to bring computer training to schools in underprivileged communities.

Currently the cost of a PC is no less than $400. This is placing such a high financial burden on the companies who are trying to make a difference in our country that most are calling it an impossible task. By creating a low cost PC and then forcing it’s distribution to be through our government, you are effectively rendering the attempts of the private sector even more futile and impotent.

Even if you did not distribute it to us at a discounted rate, at least make it available to us. Please consider using a minimum order size, rather than specific organizations as your barrier to entry.

--Jaco Vosloo 15:52, 3 April 2006 (EDT)

I agree. The advantage of a low cost, kinetically powered laptop is going to be much wider than just developing countries. The funding project I would love to see would be where I could buy a laptop for my family in the first world at three or four times the cost with the remaining funds going to provide three or four children with identical laptops. --Michael Miller --130.216.191.184 01:16, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

Just to add a vote here: In the UK there are many families who could use a basic machine capable of (alas) Word compatible wordprocessing and Web access. I'd pay a factor of three to four for a machine like this on a sponsorship basis, provided I knew the surplus was providing screens in target countries.

--Keith Burnett

This project is too cool to ignore capitalism

The OLPC laptop is a first rate techno gadget and I want one, every geek on the block will, and not just the famed "$100" but the duel-use screen, the crank power. The project needs to face the fact that we constitute market demand, and third world kids "losing" their laptops and ending up with $200US to feed their familes constitutes supply. OLPC needs to realize this and that crating a "with OLPC Tax" supply chain is a necessary part of meeting their goal. I am not going to run of to some impoverished nation and bribe some kid out of his laptop, but if somone else "aquires" these machines and puts one up on e-bay, I'm bidding.

--Dan Warren

Quanta

If there is a commercial demand for these units, then Quanta, the manufacturer, should be able to make them for commercial sale as well. The ideal for this would be for a charitable organization to be the reseller of the units with all profits plowed back into putting more units in the hands of kids in countries, like South Africa, where there is no special government deal. This allows the normal capitalist system of charitable organizations to function. The thing is that the OLPC folks need to spin-off this function into a separate organization so as not to distract them from their main goals.