The triumph of the Classmate

A recent article in the Wall Street Journal, and the video that comes with it, is quite negative and critical of the OLPC project.

It’s true that the OLPC has not had the success that was expected. According to the article, a big reason is that the project has faced strong opposition from Microsoft and above all from Intel, who by aggressively promoting the Classmate have slowed adoption of the laptop.

The OLPC foundation said at one point that countries like Nigeria, Brazil, Argentina, Libya and Thailand were each buying a million units, but over time we’ve realized it didn’t go as announced, and in the end the only country buying the laptop is Uruguay, with just 100,000 units.

It is the Classmate that is gaining ground. Nigeria has already decided to buy 17,000 units, not without some controversy. But Intel has also closed deals with Libya and Pakistan, and claims to have pilots scheduled in 22 countries.

In addition, according to the WSJ, countries like Libya and Egypt have decided to buy the 3 dollar versions of Windows that Microsoft offered earlier this year.

Something similar is happening in our country. The municipality of Huechuraba, in Santiago, recently announced its decision to buy Classmate machines for some 1,600 students in the district. Something that was greeted with joy on the site of the Un Computador Por Niño movement.

For those of us who support the OLPC’s XO this news is disappointing, but understandable. Besides, what matters is giving the poorest children access to the technologies that will be commonplace in the future, and that will prepare them better for what’s coming. Whether that is achieved by one means or another, it’s a gain.

But it’s not the scenario we’d like to see, that has to be said. So, why is the Classmate gaining ground?

According to the WSJ, apart from Intel’s aggressive campaign (“We can’t compete,” says an OLPC promoter in Nigeria, “the moment we start to gain some traction they [Intel] step up their effort”), the main reasons mentioned are two: Windows and technical support.

Windows?

Again, according to the WSJ, “officials in Libya, who had planned to buy 1.2 million XO laptops, voiced concern that these laptops lacked Windows, and that service, teacher training and upgrades would be a future problem.” The sad reality is that for many education ministers the decision is simple (a “no brainer”): go with Microsoft.

But a point that is hardly minor is technical support.

After a private meeting with Negroponte, Carine Umutesi, IT adviser to the government of Rwanda, questioned the technical support for the XO laptop. “Who will repair these computers when they break?”

That has been a “terrible question” for Negroponte, but the OLPC chairman’s answer is more terrible still, in my opinion: it is the students themselves who will have to take care of “doing as much maintenance as possible”.

For a while now I’ve been coming around to Christian’s view: the OLPC is probably a great concept, but the project’s real problem may be Negroponte.