Dear Colleagues,
There's a lot be excited about Negroponte's $100 One Laptop per Child
idea but we also need to think about some of the issues that present
themselves. One issue that will need to be discussed stems from this
part of the plan, taken from <http://laptop.media.mit.edu/faq.html>
> Manufacturing will begin when 5 to 10 million machines have been ordered
> and paid for in advance.
That means manufacturing won't start until $500M - $1B has been
spent. That's a very, very big bet to make. Think of it this way:
how much due diligence would you want to spend before committing $1B
on anything, let along something totally new from a new organization.
OK, sure, the world's problems and education are worth that much and
more, but I don't like to make such huge, single bets. Among other
things it could lead to the same monoculture people complain about in
Windows, saturating the market and draining all investments to only
one solution controlled by one multi-billion dollar organization.
The Big Bang approach is dramatic, but I think in practice a more
measured and varied approach is better for all (except maybe the MIT
folks): take 4-5 steps in the production ramp up, such as 10K units,
then 100K, then 1M, then 10M, with checkpoints along the way before
full commitments are made to the next step.
Along the way variant units can be designed, perhaps by sharing some
of the technology with other groups that can make good contributions
to the general problem.
-- Jim
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