The new promotion, aptly titled Give 1, Get 1, lets interested Americans and Canadians purchase two XO laptops, one for themselves and one to be donated to a child in need, for $399, including shipping. OLPC will run the promotion for two weeks between November 12 and 26, according to NYTimes.com. The group is already accepting donations, but Give 1, Get 1 marks the first time the XO machines will be available to the public.
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The eventual goal of the project is to produce laptops that can be sold to governments or schools in developing countries for US$100, hence its original title, the $100 Laptop initiative. The laptop, called the XO, currently costs $188, recently bumped up from $176 due to increases in the costs of raw materials like silicon and nickel, but OLPC hopes to reduce the price to around $100 after more countries sign on and the machines can be produced on a much larger scale.
I've been following the progress of OLPC since it was first announced by Nicholas Negroponte, MIT Media Lab cofounder and OLPC chairman, in January 2005 at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
From the start, the project has faced its fair share of hiccups, including criticism from computer and software producers—even Microsoft's Bill Gates took a few shots at Mr. Negroponte and his OLPC machines—various price increases and a lack of support from large developing countries like India. But recent reviews of the machines have largely been positive and it's beginning to look like OLPC may have the potential to finally take off. A computer expert from the University of Aarhus in Denmark last week reviewed an XO laptop and said the machine could prove to be a revolutionary tool for education in developing nations. Chip giant Intel also recently said it would support OLPC, even though it already makes its own low-end computer that competes with the XO laptop, the Classmate PC. The XO laptop runs on chips from Intel's biggest rival, AMD.
The NYTimes.com article cites a valid concern OLPC had regarding Give 1, Get 1 before it moved forward with the promotion. The project team feared that potential participants, or their children, would be turned off by the machines' lack of common features found in their current computers, like hard disk drives. And they feared that donors would vent their frustrations online, spreading bad publicity across the Web and possibly damning the entire program. So in August, OLPC sponsored a focus group of children between the ages of 7 and 11, to garner their collective impressions, and found the children were largely pleased with XO machines.
From the article:
The focus-group subjects liked the fact that the machine was intended specifically for children, and appreciated features like the machine-to-machine wireless communication. "Completely beastly" was the verdict of one boy. Another environmentally conscious youngster noted that the laptop "prevents global warming."
I think Give 1, Get 1 is a fantastic idea, though I've got to say I'm not sure it will draw as much support as Negroponte and his team hope. It's clear to me that anyone who
