From: Mustafa Akgul (akgul@Bilkent.EDU.TR)
Date: Tue 15 Nov 2005 - 14:51:01 EET
November 14, 2005
The $100 Laptop Moves Closer to Reality
By STEVE STECKLOW
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 14, 2005; Page B1
A novel plan to develop a $100 laptop computer for
distribution to millions of schoolchildren in
developing countries has caught the interest of
governments and the attention of computer-industry
heavyweights.
First announced in January by Nicholas Negroponte,
the founding chairman of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology's Media Lab, the initiative
appears to be gaining steam. Mr. Negroponte is
scheduled to demonstrate a working prototype of the
device with United Nations Secretary General Kofi
Annan on Wednesday at a U.N. technology conference
in Tunisia.
Mr. Negroponte and other backers say they have
held discussions with at least two dozen countries
about purchasing the laptops and that Brazil and
Thailand have expressed the most interest so far.
In addition, Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney
recently proposed spending $54 million to buy one
of the laptops for every student in middle school
and high school in his state.
Design Continuum's prototype of a $100 laptop
with hand crank, for students in developing countries.
Although no contracts with governments have
been signed, Mr. Negroponte says current plans
call for producing five to ten million units
beginning in late 2006 or early 2007, with tens
of millions more a year later. Five companies
-- Google Inc., Advanced Micro Devices Inc.,
Red Hat Inc., News Corp. and Brightstar Corp.
-- have each provided $2 million to fund a
nonprofit organization called One Laptop Per
Child that was set up to oversee the project.
Mr. Negroponte says five companies are bidding
to make the laptop, although he declined to
name them.
Mr. Negroponte remains eager to place the
laptop in the hands of 100 to 150 million
students. He says he has learned in
educational projects in Cambodia and other
developing countries that computers spur
children to learn and explore outside the
boundaries of a classroom, and share their
discoveries with their families. "I do not
think of them only in classrooms, but part of
an integrated and seamless experience for kids
and their families," he says.
Still, the project would require governments in the developing
world to come up with $15 billion to supply 150 million laptops,
and it isn't yet clear how many countries can afford
even a $100 machine. Technical hurdles also remain.
The device that will be shown in Tunisia is still an early version; Mr. Negroponte says
the screen alone will require another three months of development. The designers also
have yet to bring the overall price down to $100, although they say they are getting
close. "Even if the first ones are $118.50, as long as subsequent machines are less and
less expensive, that is what counts," Mr. Negroponte says.
Major computer industry players appear to be taking the venture seriously, including
companies like Microsoft Corp. that aren't yet participating. Microsoft could be
confronting a laptop that could become a standard in the developing world -- one
that, for now, would come without its dominant Windows software.
Mr. Negroponte discussed the project last week with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates
and Craig Mundie, chief technical officer of advanced strategies and policy. "We're
in serious discussions to determine what the appropriate type of involvement is
with us with their project," says Mr. Mundie.
Steve Jobs, Apple Computer Inc.'s chief executive, offered to provide free copies
of the company's operating system, OS X, for the machine, according to Seymour
Papert, a professor emeritus at MIT who is one of the initiative's founders. "We
declined because it's not open source," says Dr. Papert, noting the designers
want an operating system that can be tinkered with. An Apple spokesman
declined to comment.
Under present plans, the first production version of the laptop will be
powered by an AMD microprocessor and use an open-source Linux-based operating
system supplied by Red Hat. Open-source software is not patent protected and can
be copied for free. To get the price down, an eight-inch diagonal screen --
smaller than standard notebook computers -- will run in two modes, with a
high-resolution monochrome mode for word processing and a lower-resolution color
mode for Internet surfing. It will be powered by both a power adapter, if
electricity is available, or through a wind-up mechanism. The device will have
wireless capabilities and can network with other units even without Internet
access.
Mr. Negroponte says the project's supporters are working to provide
Internet access in some areas via cellular phone networks. He also
believes competition and deregulation eventually will bring low-cost access
to even the poorest countries. The designers say they are planning to give
the laptop a unique look to discourage sales on the black market in developing
countries.
At the same time, they say they are hoping to authorize a commercial
version that would sell for around $200, with a share of the profits
ideally used to subsidize the educational project. "We are in talks
with large, brand-name companies," Mr. Negroponte says, noting it will be up
to them to decide where and how to sell it. "I would not hold my breath
for it to be in Best Buy," he says.
Software will include a word processor, a Web browser, an email
program and a programming system. Governments would decide how to use
the machine in classrooms. "We're going to give them general tools so
they can make big changes [in curriculum] if they want to," says
Dr. Papert, who is a pioneer in using computers in education. "Even using
it as a typewriter has a payoff."
Rodrigo Mesquita, a Brazilian entrepreneur and a member of a
government working group on the project, says his country believes
the laptops could be used both to improve public education and the
economy. Brazil is hoping to manufacture three million units,
beginning next year, and supply some of them to other countries,
he says. He also says money normally spent on
textbooks would be used to pay for the laptops for Brazilian
schoolchildren. "I'm very optimistic," he says, giving the
project a "70 to 80%" chance of being launched in the country.
Daryl Sartain, director of strategic business development at
AMD, says his company is "absolutely committed" to the
project and that it fits in with its initiative to bring Internet
and computing access to half the world by 2015. "I have no doubt
that this will happen," he says of the laptop project, adding, "It
will, like everything else, have bumps in the road and some
evolution that occurs." He declined to say how much the company would
charge for its microprocessor, but says, "Certainly we expect this to
be a business for AMD. We also expect it to be a business for many
other companies, not just us."
Meanwhile, Intel Corp. says it isn't worried about the thought of
millions of laptops in developing countries powered by a
competitor's chips. "Our view is that whatever it takes to get
computer power to places where it hasn't been before is a good
thing," says spokesman Chuck Mulloy. "But there will be
different flavors of these kind of devices." Noting that Intel is
involved in other projects to bring low-cost computers to
developing countries, he says the company has learned from
experience that "functionality is equally important to cost."
Gretchen Miller, director of world-wide marketing for mobile
systems at Dell Inc., said she didn't think a $100 laptop would
be powerful enough to meet students' needs. "We don't
believe it's feasible at this point to manufacture a $100
notebook that meets our quality performance standards. Those
things are all customer driven," she says, adding, "It's important
that a computer prepare students for the applications they'll be
using after they get out of school."
But Mike Evans, vice president of corporate development at Red
Hat and who has been working on the laptop project for nine
months, disputes the suggestion that the machine will be
inadequate for students. "There are people in developing
countries who have never seen computers so it's not like, 'How
is this better than Windows?"' he says.
Mr. Papert, who is critical of the computer industry, says one
of the project's goals is to challenge the notion that a
laptop must be expensive. "They've followed a policy of
stuffing more and more into it which most people don't really
need and keep the price up. I think it's quite amazing that
they managed to convince the world to accept that, but they did."
He also says Microsoft, which is a financial contributor to
MIT and a backer of its Media Lab, has undergone a change in
attitude about the $100 laptop. "Their first reaction
was to laugh at the idea, then the next reaction was kind of
antagonistic," he says. "Recently, they're very friendly."
Microsoft's Mr. Mundie says he wasn't aware of any
antagonism, adding, "At the end of the day, I think we
have fundamentally the same objectives that the Media Lab
project has relative to the kids." And Mr. Negroponte,
after meeting with Mr. Gates, now says, "The machine will
run anything, including Windows."
Write to Steve Stecklow at
steve.stecklow@wsj.com1
URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113193305149696140.html
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