The recent dispute between OLPC and Intel over Intel’s involvement with the XO laptop has again brought the issues of the OLPC project much attention.

Looking at the many articles that have been written about the recent split, there seem to be several points which should be considered, many of which have not been clarified by either OLPC or Intel.

To summarise the partnership, Intel partnered the OLPC project in July 2007, after months of conflict between the two developers. The addition of Intel to the project meant that the company joined the other 11 companies (inc. google and AMD) who were already partners. From a BBC article in July, it appeared that the intention was for Intel to keep selling the Classmate PC, OLPC to keep selling the XO with the AMD chip, but to have the back up servers using Intel technology, and consideration be given by OLPC to using Intel chips in the XO’s. There was also mention that new software developed would be XO and Classmate compatible. OLPC were quoted in the same BBC article as saying ‘I think we will end up with a family of products that run across a wide variety of needs. Intel will be part of that mix.’

The Classmate PC

In the last week, Intel has pulled out of the project.

The OLPC rationale for this decision, as stated by Nick Negroponte (the head of the OLPC project) was:

The biggest single reason was that [Intel] were directly selling their Classmate laptop as opposed to having it be a reference design [for the XO]. (source)

One of the events mentioned most frequently by and for OLPC, is that a salesperson for Intel in Peru apparently made an attempt to stop the government buying XO’s and encourage them to buy Classmate PC’s instead.

As a consequence, OLPC state that one of their other reasons for having a problem with Intel’s actions is that Intel were criticising the XO to promote the Classmate. If that is the case, it does seem underhand on the part of Intel, and likely goes against the agreement made.

‘OLPC head Nicholas Negroponte has lashed out at the company accusing them of being self-serving and undermining the OLPC programme.’ (source)

However, it appears, and has been mentioned on several articles, that this issue of defamation occurred (or at least has been accepted to have occured) only once. As Negroponte himself said in reference to the boss of Intel:

He’s got 100,000 people and he can’t control all of them. (source)

So perhaps judgement of Intel’s actual intentions to contradict any agreement in this manner should be withheld until any evidence is given. Therefore, this article will consider the other reasons and issues surrounding the partnership.

Intel’s rationale for the split, as explained by an Intel spokesperson, was that “OLPC had asked Intel to end our support for non-OLPC platforms, including the Classmate PC, and to focus on the OLPC platform exclusively. At the end of the day, we decided we couldn’t accommodate that request.” (source)

Having looked at explanations given by both sides, the issue of the Classmate PC, and competition itself, are clearly the causes of the problem.

There appears to have been a difference in OLPC and Intel’s views as to how Intel were going to deal with the Classmate PC once the partnership was initiated. It should be noted that without knowing exactly what the agreement stated, it is hard to know what was actually agreed, however it is clear that there was at the very least misinterpretation, or possibly outright breaking of the agreement on the part of one of the sides.

The XO laptop

From the BBC article from July 2007 quoted earlier, the impression given was that Intel would continue as before with its sales approach to the Classmate PC. There would be benefits to both sides in terms of cross-compatible software, and potentially Intel chips in the XO as well as the back-up servers using Intel technology.

However, Negroponte’s statement quoted earlier, that the Classmate PC should have been used as a reference design rather than Intel ‘directly selling their laptop’, seems to contradict this.

OLPC’s request that Intel end support for it’s own product the Classmate PC, also appears to directly contradict this.

In summary of this point, the author wonders what OLPC actually thought Intel was going to do. Did they think Intel would forfeit profit from the Classmate PC and not be ‘self-serving’? Negroponte’s quote mentioned earlier that OLPC ‘thought [they] could move towards [the Classmate PC] being a reference design’, seems significant with the word ‘thought’. Does this mean that Intel never agreed to this for definite? The question seems to be, did OLPC expect Intel to not act like a business?

It does not become apparent from reading around the topic, how exactly OLPC and Intel believed that the partnership could work. The mix of business and not-for-profit is unusual in a situation where both are competing. If we consider what would happen in a business to business situation, the partnership would never have happened. If we consider two not-for-profit enterprises, they would probably collaborate, because they could help each other. However, in this case, OLPC seem to have expected help from Intel, and expected to not only give nothing in return, but also that Intel would sacrifice their aims (of profit) for the OLPC cause.

In terms of the competition between the two, this issue again proves extremely contradictory. Firstly, the two clearly are competitors, otherwise this problem would never have arisen in the first place, and the reasons given by both sides for the split, whilst somewhat different both acknowledge that it was because of competition between the Classmate PC and the XO.

Negroponte has again contradicted himself after he was quoted a few months ago:

From my point of view, if the world were to have 30 million” laptops made by competitors “in the hands of children at the end of next year, that to me would be a great success. My goal is not selling laptops. OLPC is not in the laptop business. It’s in the education business. (source)

This appears to be in contradiction to his recent approach of asking Intel to stop selling the Classmate PC.

As Negroponte said:

When I questioned [Intel] about selling laptops directly, Paul Otellini himself would say that one size doesn't fit all. And we agree with that, of course. That wasn't the issue. They cannot compete with OLPC and be a partner. (source)

So, although there appears that there was no part of the agreement that stated that Intel could not promote or sell the Classmate PC, OLPC knew they could not be both a competitor and a partner. So exactly what was Intel’s approach supposed to be?

In terms of this, perhaps the comment from Paul Otellini that one size doesn’t fit all, was misinterpreted by Negroponte when he stated that it meant that they were not competitors. Whilst consumers clearly choose products for different reasons, it does not mean that the products are not competitors. Just because the XO has an ideology of constructivist learning, does that mean that consumers will put the two in different categories? Or does it actually mean that consumers will still look at the product and it’s tangible benefits, over the intangible and theoretical (in this case educational) differences.

It seems to the author that perhaps one of the problems with the OLPC is that whilst they are correct that their approach (constructivism) would be beneficial especially in developing world countries (as it emphasises the users particular social situation (culture, language, logic etc) and encourages collaboration), they are not selling an idea in reality, they are selling a product. And they are selling a product that resides in a massively competitive market (as discussed in an interesting nextbillion.net article), ruled by giant corporations, ruled by profit. In this case, what the author means by ‘in reality’ is not that OLPC are not trying to sell an idea, which they clearly are, but that markets are ruled by consumers, not sellers, and maybe an idea that is not status quo in terms of education is not going to feature as a priority when considering one laptop versus another in a society where bridging the digital divide is generally considered a priority. Intel clearly supports the bridging the digital divide initiative, with its World Ahead program of Accessibility, Connectivity, Education, and Content, and it’s clear update and support system for their product (particularly through it’s use of Windows Operating System).

In conclusion, it seems that the partnership was destined to fail, and that there are just too many differences in the way the two developers work. However, the author does sympathise with Intel (aside from the alleged underhand defamation of the XO), and considers that maybe the OLPC’s ideology based approach needs some sort of reality check on its integration of ideology into reality, without which it seemingly will not reach it’s potential.

If OLPC want to help education through their ideology, that is a good thing and the author does believe that the approach of constructivism could work. However, perhaps OLPC need to consider that the product first needs to be able to compete with the existing products in their market, to allow infiltration of their product. This would allow people to actually understand through first hand experience why the approach is beneficial, rather than OLPC relying on people to trust the theory of constructivism, and the XO interpretation of it, neither of which the buyers or users likely have experience or knowledge of.

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3. Misplaced Priority – One Laptop per Child Initiative
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