A better alternative to One Laptop per Child?

Fortune: A better alternative to One Laptop per Child?

For those interested in bridging the digital divide, two seemingly-unrelated headlines in today’s news together tell a fascinating story. The first headline topped the tech news: Nicholas Negraponte’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative will start selling their laptops to buyers in rich countries. But there’s a wrinkle: Rich-country buyers must buy their machines in lots of two, one they get to keep, while the other goes to a needy child overseas. Why the 2-for-1 charity promo?

“I have to some degree underestimated the difference between shaking the hand of a head of state and having a cheque written,” said Negraponte to the New York Times recently. In short, weak demand.

The second item appeared on the front of a special section in today’s Wall Street Journal: N-Computing, a Redwood City-based start-up, has won the Journal’s 7th annual technology innovation award in the category “Computing Systems.” What’s the connection? Well, N-Computing essentially brings “thin client computing” from the Western enterprise to the developing world. That is, the company makes low cost hardware devices that turn regular PCs into servers. (Think VMWare (VMW) or Citrix (CTXS) for poor people.)

Equipped with the $11 N-Computing device, a garden-variety PC can host up to seven simultaneous users. Each user requires only a screen, keyboard, and a mouse, but they get a full Windows (MSFT) desktop experience.

While Negraponte and OLPC have generated most of the buzz in recent years, N-Computing and its CEO Stephen Dukker represent a different approach to solving the same problem: how to get computing power into the hands of the world’s neediest students. And while not-for-profit OLPC has faced nothing but headwinds, for profit N-Computing appears to be getting real market traction. Last week, for example, the company closed a deal to outfit most of the school children in Macedonia with “desktops.” Yes, it’s Macedonia, but that’s upwards of 100,000 “seats.” And, the reseller that is doing the installation is China’s Haier Group, which clearly expects to make a buck on the deal. So there’s a real business model here, beneath the altruism. ....

Comments

[Nate Custer]

Mike,

Sorry but this betrays more the newspapper's bias then any real apples to apples comparison. If a nightly news show did a report about global warming and only interviewed a scientist that had invented a biofuel who said the real cost of global warming is: $X.

You would ask for data.

That fully loaded price i.e. hardware and software is compared against the OLPC which has uses free software. So the cost comparision is not valid. At his best he can deliver a desktop experiance that does not even compare to a olpc laptop experiance for more money then the olpc.

It also does not address the internet access issues nor the power supply concerns that the OLPC has custom hardware and software solutions to handle.

Its a cool idea, I am glad he is selling his software, and glad that more people can use computers because of it. But the OLPC guys were not persuing less then 2 million seat deals with any government, so their failure to get a 2 million seat deal as fast as this guy gets a 100,000 seat deal is not as meaningful as the article sounds.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Thanks for the analysis Nate. I haven't really taken the time to really analyze the the variables on this one. I include this article because I think it offers an interesting competitive attempt. By comparing models we learn things. :)