Individual sale?

Reply

Yes, the plan is to do a deal for a retail version. Keep an eye on the Retail page for new developments.

Similar retail products

Remember that the super-cool software and mesh networking will only work if lots of people in your neighbourhood have one. If you are the only person, you will just see you on all the networking/activity pages. You will also have to change from mesh to regular networking.

Start thinking about costs: The laptop costs $130-208[1] depending on where you get your numbers ($100 is a future price point). So, most products have 100% added to the price by all the hands it has to touch (distributor, retailer and profit).

Parts and production may be at special prices. Many tech (and other) companies will give you ~5% off if you fax them your non-profit paperwork.

If the laptop is $170 (average of 130 & 208) at this point, assuming production and parts are at a 5% discount that you can't get ($178.50), and we have to pay distributors and retailers (+100%), the price is $357. Double this to buy-one-give-one, and you are paying $714 ($357 each). On top of that, they do not want to sell you one.

At that price and a long wait, you could look at other options. The PepperPad (version 3) is the closest thing to the OLPC (AMD Geode x86, camera, and portable). It also adds blue tooth, so you can connect to your cell phone for Internet access. Sadly, it is selling for $620.

If you want to contribute you become a user of a low-power Linux environment to start. Then you could test Sugar software releases or develop additions. Take a look at the development systems that people are talking about if you want to use the applications. Most of these systems don't have all the good things: an x86 processor, the camera, portable.

Don't let the lack of a unit keep you from helping, get something or emulate.

MAKE THEM AVAILABLE!!

The competition is coming. Intel has announced a cheap knockoff of the OLPC called 'CLassMate'. I use the word cheap in reference to the quality of their design, not the cost. They expect their unit to come in at under $400. Well, if the OLPC would spinout a non-profit organization to sell the OLPC itself for $300, I think it would knock the socks off Intel and provide money that can be used to deploy units in really poor countries like Ethiopia. ---

The most important thing about this project is helping children (specifically, not exclusively) in their education by supplying them with personal laptops/portable computers, and so, limiting their availibility to children in higher "decile" countries is hypocratic to say the least. Also why is there so much talk of altering a commercial model? As government(s) would not pay for laptops for those who can afford them why not permit them to purchse their own at a price based on their income. One could also include a donation aspect to the retail price in a "buy-one-donate-one-free" in order to further strengthen the viability and impact of the project.

Paolo Edgerton Bachmann, NZ, edgertronics@gmail.com

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. 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)

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. 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 small and cheap physical differences as well so that OLPCs from the target area cannot be economically transformed into sellable ones.

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 people. 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

Why has nobody mentioned Baygen?

I'm editing this page on the morning of 7/7/06, and I'm amazed that to date there is not a comment on this page mentioning the Baygen clockwork radio. There was a revolutionary power technology, harnessed to a powerful educational tool (a radio), distributed entirely for free to third world communities that could use it. And how was this financed? By selling exactly the same thing to people in the first world, at a pretty vastly inflated price. Consider: I can buy an FM radio the size of my thumbnail for $5, or I can pay $100 for something that does the same thing but is the size of a toaster, heavier, and needs winding up... BUT, the latter is a fundamentally cool gadget, it has a charismatic "eccentric" inventor (Trevor Baylis), and when I do buy it I get that priceless fuzzy feeling of doing some good because I know the inflated price is there so that other people who can't afford one will get one too.

I strongly believe that the "$100 laptop" would sell in helpful numbers in the West EVEN IF it was significantly MORE expensive than more powerful "conventional" laptop computers, simply because of the altruism factor. This model has been demonstrated to work by the Baygen radio. Also, I can see their "stripped down" simplicity as a selling point to the significant number of people in the west who consider complexity in their computer to be a hindrance, not a help. Witness the massive success in Japan of the mobile phone that is *just* a mobile phone, not a web browser/mp3 player/camera/personal organiser/pc/videogame console/giant robot.

I agree with the point that "one laptop per child" is a desirable endpoint. One laptop per village would be a start, then one laptop per family. But any given area would have to be deluged with these things FAST to remove the incentive to steal them. They'd need to be as ubiquitous as rocks on the ground, overnight.

Suggested modifications for commercial model

• Commercial version should be without the symbol of OLPC on plastic case, which means OLPC is a symbol for the non-commercial model

• Bigger sreen size (e.g. 9"-10")

I strrongly disagree. One of the major attractive features of the laptop to me is its small screen size, which would make it easier to carry around - my current laptop, with a 12" screen, is about twice as large as I'd like it to be, and its screen already goes right to the edge.- GE Wilker

• Grey colored case similar to most laptops, or maybe a Baja Blue coloured case, different from most laptops. An interesting webspace with lots about colour is the http://www.pantone.com webspace. Maybe the laptop could be made in a custom Pantone colour. Or even a customer-specified gradient of Pantone colours. With stripes.

• Keyboard marked for any European language that uses a Latin or Cyrillic script. This is typically done by putting both a Latin and a Cyrillic letter on each key. All accented characters can be supported using dead-key accents, i.e. the keyboard driver requires you to press an accent key, followed by the letter. For example, the keystrokes "'e" produce a single e-acute character. This is the strategy used in MS-Windows US-International keyboard driver.

• Upgraded ram - should have >= 256 mb.

• Flash upgrade to 1 gb - not essensial since SD slot was added

• Package it with a power brick. Westerners who want to be off the grid can buy a Freecharge portable charger or their own solar charging kit.

• Unique features on the case identifying it as a commercial model that are very difficult to replicate. Primarily this should be moulded into the lid or inset into the lid with different-colored plastic.

• Include Bluetooth for Mobile Phone internet function.

Just remove the OLPC logo, re-brand it and make a few small differences. I like the laptop and it's colours & design the way they are! --RZ

I agree, that probably was asking for too much (core 2 duo chip, ddr2 ram, hard drive, cell phone, etc.). It would be fine if it was basically the same, just modestly enhanced (such as more flash memory and ram, different color, and a faster processor). I really think it's a very bad idea for this project to not sell these at retail (and use profits to fund more laptops in target countries), or relegate it to the future as a non-essential priority. I think many people would buy these, not just because of activism, but it would be nice to have a very durable, inexpensive computer that can be used for basic needs, like taking notes in classes. Also, even people with expensive, powerful laptops might like a secondary one they can take around. Both because it's designed for durability and if something happens to it, they've just lost $200-$300, not $1500

I love this project but I love this laptop as well - I want to have one :)! But honestly: Thid product is NOT shit (as Mr. Gates states) at all - but high tech: It is a high quality product inbetween a notebook and a PDA and could be something very usefull to anybody in the world. Please consider to develop a slightly diffrent version in adult colors, with a little bit more of memory - flash and/or RAM - or with a little bit faster CPU ... (or whatever), give it a serial number (or even the child versions too, if needed), make it easy distinguishable from the "child" version, and sell it to earn money to give more children the possibility to get an OLPC laptop.

But please consider another thing: What about poor children (or people in general) living in a "rich western" country? They might not be poor compared to people living in a developing country - but could be not rich enough to buy a "normal" laptop anyway - for them such a commercial version of this laptop could help decreasing the digital divide as well.

-- Michal Voigt, Germany

The $300 pledgebank sign-up

A price point that is often mentioned is $300. There was a sign-up page at pledgebank.com where you could pledge to purchase the olpc laptop for $300 US, with the understanding that the additional money will fund machines for the third world. This has now expired far short of its goal. More information is available on the Retail page.

I agree. --Michael Miller --130.216.191.184 01:16, 5 April 2006 (EDT)

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

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

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. The trick is to lower the perceived value to a point where it is not worth stealing them.

-- Simon Vogt, UK

Buy One, Give One Free

When a first-world consumer buys a laptop, they buy one for a third-worlder and they become ePen/eMail pals.

"Today the OLPC program has laid down the framework for the assurance of it's success, the team led by Nicholas Negroponte have created a plan for all companies which are not currently involved in the OLPC project to get some 'street credentials' in their local community and for the Developing World to be assured of a ready supply of these Mean Machines. The launch of the Buy one, Give one Free program is simple, Companies to invest in the education of children in the local communities each company buys units of educational laptops at $200 a piece, in bundles of 1,000-10,000, for each laptop they buy to invest in the education of their local community of children a further laptop is sent to a developing country to be used by that child's future laptop buddy or email friend, a child in a developing nation who will hopefully get equal benefit from the use of this education device.

Buy One, Get One Free will be comming soon, do the companies in your local area care enough about educating the community in which they are based, lets find out. Companies complain about vandalism and Graffiti and a lack of community spirit when it comes to theft, well here is a chance to create some real community relations, perminatly!"

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

I could easily see buying one at $200 with the knowledge that I was also buying another for a child elsewhere. 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.

--Nick Acks, Baltimore, MD

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. 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 would like to add a little tweak to the above - target the initial $200 laptop at NGOs. When an NGO (especially an educational NGO, but not limited to those) goes into an area the laptops will be cost effective enough for them to supply all of their staff with the units, and have an equal number (or more) to distribute to local kids. This has the added benefit of doubling the numbers of laptops in an area, thus increasing the size of the local network. At $200 the units are cheap enough that some NGOs could reasonably leave them behind if their project ended. Make them laptops available in lots of 10, for the price of 1 mid-range standard laptop.

Imagine an organization like Medicins sans Frontiers equipping all their staff with OLPC units and seeding their areas of operation with the extras. If a mobile clinic was going to be at a village, a network broadcast could be sent to notify local laptops that the clinic was coming, or when new vaccines arrived, or if services at a clinic were going to change.

There are literally thousands of active NGOs working in the areas OLPC is targetting. They provide not just a huge market, but a very effective way to further distribute these laptops and increase their penetration of any given area.

-- Todd Raine, Canada

I just came here to give my opinion about selling and donation together. You can never block off commercial version of OLPC forever since the human being is the animal of desire. The black ways of selling OLPC like making fakes or reselling from poor children etc, are just over there. Those days can come much earier than we expect, actually.

-- Alum Hwang, South Korea

Since also in western country there are large area of poverty the need to access to cheap computer must be granted also in all Europe ,at least for students from poor family,economic and political refugees and so on and in European country as Kosovo, Albania, Croazia, Montenegro, Romania, Hungary.

Don't sell them

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.

How would a loose set of competing warlords get the planning and money needed to get them into the country? I think they are only going to be in the stable poor states.

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.

A serial system ist preety nice tool to observe the user of a laptop. And we are speaking about countries like china...

I know people who will pay $500 for a new 2B1 when they become available regardless of whether the unit is a stolen one. They won't be flashing them around in public so no serial number is going to make a difference. Recorded serial numbers just push the sales of stolen stuff into the black market and that is already where sales of 2B1's will be so there is no net impact.

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.

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

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, NY

Open Source Design

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 project, in return for the original design & collect a royalty. Then use it to fund free or subsidized laptops for children of poor countries. [2]

-- Subhas Chilumula, Rutherford, NJ, USA.

Many people love to mod devices such as these, but I don't like spending at minimum of $1000 to get a laptop with a good battery life without fooling around with it. I'm just a hapless college student who doesn't like to have his fancy laptop run out of batteries midway through the third class of the day while he's trying to take notes. A no-frills laptop like this is worth $200-300 to own. The fact that this extra cost is allowing some kid to get a free laptop is a wonderful bonus. If I weren't a poor college student, I'd pay the price I would pay for a good laptop on one of these just for the charity aspect. Considering that I've spent a lot of money on some pretty crappy laptops, I could be persuaded to spend a lot of money on a good laptop if I knew that it was for charity.

--- David Barron, Jacksonille, FL, USA.

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.

I'd buy one for $200 in a second. Just give it a different coloured case to distinguish it from others.

Child Education is Global

Giving children the tools to educate themselves is a global endeavor -- not only for the very poorest countries and there is no better educational tool than peer support. I live in Canada, and I know that 99% of the families that I went to school with could not afford to buy a computer of this ability for their children.

I am a father of two in Canada and I want my children to have access to this technology. I would love them to be able to communicate with other children in their school and other parts of the world... all parts of the world. I don't care if it comes through their schools, through a retail outlet or though a website I put my visa information into but I do care if I can't provide them to my children simply because I live in Canada.

Being a software developer I'd also be interested in developing community software for them that would allow the children to share their ideas and work... but I'm waiting to see if the program meets my own moral standard in terms of being a truly global tool before I put thousands of hours of work into it.

--Brill 22:21, 26 August 2006 (EDT)

Sponsoring Child in Africa - Allow individuals to buy

My family sponsors a child in Africa and we adopted a child from China. We would welcome the opportunity to buy one of these laptops for our sponsored child as well as buy several for the chinese orphanages. I would think many other families either directly or indirectly would be willing to pay the cost and shipping to have these units sent out to specific people in need. Please consider the request to allow individuals the opportunity to purchae these systems for people in need.

--Matic4 21:19, 20 December 2006 (EST)