$100 Laptop – Product Management in International Markets

THE $100 LAPTOP (OLPC XO-1)

Product Management in International Markets

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The XO-1, previously known as the $100 Laptop, Children's Machine, and 2B1, also

nicknamed “ceibalita” in Uruguay, is an inexpensive subnotebook computer intended to be
distributed to children in developing countries around the world, to provide them with
access to knowledge, and opportunities to "explore, experiment and express themselves"
(constructionist learning). The laptop is developed by the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) non-
profit, 501(c)(3)organization and manufactured by Quanta Computer.

The subnotebooks are designed for sale to government-education systems which then give

each primary school child their own laptop. Pricing was set to start at $188 in 2006, with a
stated goal to reach the $100 mark in 2008 and the 50-dollar mark by 2010. In actual
implementation, prices have remained $199 each for both the winter (northern
hemisphere) 2007 and winter 2008 Give One, Get One campaigns.

These rugged, low-power computers use flash memory instead of a hard drive, and come

with a distribution of Linux derived from Red Hat's Fedora as their pre-installed operating
system, which comes stored in both a copy on the flash memory and in the on-board ROM
backup. Mobile ad-hoc networking via 802.11s WiFi mesh networking protocol is used to
allow many machines to share Internet access as long as at least one of them can see and
connect to a router or other access point.

1) One Laptop per Child (OLPC)

The One Laptop Per Child Association, Inc. (OLPC) is a U.S. non-profit organization set up

to oversee the creation of an affordable educational device for use in the developing
world. Its mission is "to create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children
by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with
content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning."
Negroponte states that the mission is to eliminate poverty. Its current focus is on the
development, construction and deployment of the XO-1 laptop and its successors.

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The organization is led by Chairman Nicholas Negroponte, and Charles Kane, President

and Chief Operating Officer. OLPC is a non-profit organization funded by member
organizations such as AMD, eBay, Google, News Corporation, Red Hat, and Marvell.

As of March 2010, there are 2 million free books available for OLPC computers. OLPC has
generated a great deal of interest in the Information and Communication Technologies
for Development (ICT4D), Information and Communication Technologies in
Education and one to one computing fields of research.

1.1) Mission

To create educational opportunities for the world's poorest children by providing each
child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software
designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning —OLPC Mission Statement

It's an education project, not a laptop project —Nicholas Negroponte

The goal of the foundation is to provide children around the world with new
opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves. To that end, OLPC is
designing a laptop, educational software, manufacturing base, and distribution system
to provide children outside of the first-world with otherwise unavailable technological
learning opportunities.

OLPC lists five core principles:

1. Child ownership

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2. Low ages - Both hardware and software are designed for elementary school children
ages 6–12.

3. Saturation

4. Connection

5. Free and open source

1.2) History

OLPC is based on constructionist learning theories pioneered by Seymour Papert, Alan

Kay, and also on the principles expressed in Nicholas Negroponte’s book Being
Digital. These three individuals plus the several sponsor organizations are active
participants in OLPC.

Many concepts preceding the OLPC project were discussed and explored at a number of
conferences. The 2B1 Conference, held in 1997 at the Media Lab brought together
educators from developing countries around the world to "break down world barriers of
race, age, gender, language, class, economics and geography." The most immediate
outcome of that conference was the establishment of the Nation1 project and the Junior
Summit, held the following year, although many of the sessions at 2B1 helped inform
OLPC.

Both the project and the organization were announced at the World Economic
Forum in Davos, Switzerland in January 2005 and were created by faculty members of
the MIT Media Lab. The OLPC project gained much more attention when Nicholas
Negroponte and Kofi Annan unveiled a working prototype of the Children's Machine 1
(CM1) on November 16, 2005 at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
in Tunis, Tunisia. Negroponte showed two prototypes of the CM1 laptop at the second
phase of the World Summit: a non working physical model and a tethered version using
an external board and separate keyboard. The device shown was a rough prototype
using a standard development board. Negroponte estimated that the screen alone
required three more months of development. The first working prototype was
demonstrated at the project's Country Task Force Meeting on May 23, 2006. The
production version is expected to have a larger display screen in the same size package.
The laptops were originally scheduled to be available by early 2007, but production
actually began in November, 2007.

At the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the United Nations

Development Program (UNDP) announced it would back the laptop. UNDP released a

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statement saying they would work with OLPC to deliver "technology and resources to
targeted schools in the least developed countries".

The project originally aimed for a price of 100 US dollars. In May 2006, Negroponte told
the Red Hat's annual user summit: "It is a floating price. We are a non-profit
organization. We have a target of $100 by 2008, but probably it will be $135, maybe
$140." A BBC news article in April 2010 indicated the price still remains above $200.

1.3) Mass production

When the laptop started mass production in November 2007, the unit price was
estimated to be $188 when bought by thousand units. At the same time, the laptop was
made available under the "Give 1 Get 1" program at $199 for a single unit, or $399 for 2
units.

Mary Lou Jepsen was CTO until her resignation at the end of 2007 to found a new
company, Pixel Qi, to continue the development and commercialization of ideas from
the XO.

Intel was a member of the association for a brief period in 2007. It resigned its
membership on 3 January 2008, citing disagreements with requests from OLPC's
founder, Nicholas Negroponte, for Intel to stop dumping their Classmate PCs.

Ivan Krstić (former OLPC Director of Security Architecture) resigned in late February
2008 because, he said, learning wasn't what the OLPC was about even for Negroponte
(see quote below). On April 22, 2008, Walter Bender, who was the former President of
Software and Content for the OLPC project, stepped down from his post and left OLPC to
found Sugar Labs. Bender reportedly had a disagreement with Negroponte about the
future of the OLPC and their future partnerships. Negroponte also showed some doubt
about the exclusive use of open source software for the project and made suggestions
supporting a move towards adding Windows XP which Microsoft was in the process of
porting over to the XO hardware. Microsoft's Windows XP, however, is not seen by some
as a sustainable operating system. Microsoft announced on May 16, 2008, that Windows
XP would be offered as an option on XO-1 laptops and possibly be able to dual
boot alongside Linux.

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Charles Kane became the new President and Chief Operating Officer of the OLPC
Association on May 2, 2008.  In late 2008, the NYC Department of Education began a
project to purchase large numbers of XO computers for use by New York schoolchildren.

Advertisements for OLPC began streaming on the video streaming website Hulu and

others in 2008. One such ad has John Lennon advertising for OLPC, with an unknown
voice actor redubbing over Lennon's voice.

The 2008 economic downturn and increased netbook competition reduced OLPC's

annual budget from $12 million to $5 million and a major restructuring resulted effective
January 7, 2009. Development of the Sugar operating environment was moved entirely
into the community, the Latin America support organization was spun out and staff
reductions, including Jim Gettys, affected approximately 50% of the paid employees. The
remaining 32 staff members also saw salary reductions.

1.4) Technology

The XO-1, previously known as the "$100 Laptop" or "Children's Machine", is an

inexpensive laptop computer designed to be distributed to children in developing
countries around the world, to provide them with access to knowledge, and
opportunities to "explore, experiment and express themselves" (constructionist
learning). The laptop is manufactured by the Taiwanese computer company Quanta
Computer.

The rugged, low-power computers use flash memory instead of a hard drive, run

a Fedora-based operating system and use the Sugar user interface. Mobile ad-hoc
networking based on the 802.11s wireless mesh network protocol allows students to
collaborate on activities and to share Internet access from one connection. The wireless
networking has much greater range than typical consumer laptops. The XO-1 has also
been designed to be lower cost and much longer lived than typical laptops.

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The laptops include an anti-theft system which can, optionally, require each laptop to
periodically make contact with a server to renew its cryptographic lease token. If the
cryptographic lease expires before the server is contacted, the laptop will be locked until
a new token is provided. The contact may be to a country specific server over a network
or to a local, school-level server that has been manually loaded with cryptographic
"lease" tokens that enable a laptop to run for days or even months between contacts.
Cryptographic lease tokens can be supplied on a USB flash drive for un-networked
schools. The mass production laptops are also tivoized, disallowing installation of
additional software or replacement of the operating system. Users, interested in
development, need to obtain the unlocking key separately (most of developer laptops
for Western users already come unlocked). It is claimed that locking prevents
unintentional bricking and is part of the anti - theft system.

Microsoft developed a modified version of Windows XP and announced in May 2008

that Windows XP will be available for an additional cost of 10 dollars per laptop.

In 2009, OLPC announced an updated XO (dubbed XO-1.5) that takes advantage of the

latest component technologies. The XO-1.5 includes a new VIA C7-M processor and a
new chipset providing a 3D graphics engine and an HD video decoder. It has 1GB of RAM
memory and built-in storage of 4 GB, with an option for 8 GB. The XO-1.5 uses the same
display, and a network wireless interface with half the power dissipation. Early
prototype versions of the hardware were available in June 2009, and they are available
for software development and testing available for free through a developer's program.

An XO-1.75 model is being developed that will use an ARM processor, targeting a price
below $150 and date in 2011.

An XO-3 concept resembles a tablet PC and is planned to have the inner workings of the
XO 1.75.Price goal is below $100 and date is 2012. The XO-2 two sheet design concept
was cancelled in favour of the one sheet XO-3.

As of May 2010, OLPC is working with Marvell on other unspecified future tablet
designs.

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1.5) XO-1 Specification

Physical dimensions

 Approximate dimensions: 242 mm × 228 mm × 32 mm;

 Approximate weight: 1.45 kg with LiFeP battery; 1.58 kg with NiMH battery;
 Configuration: Convertible laptop with pivoting, reversible display; dirt- and
moisture-resistant system enclosure; no fan.

Core electronics

 CPU: x86-compatible processor with 64 KiB each L1 I and D caches; at least 128 KiB
L2 cache; AMD Geode LX-700 @ 0.8 W;
 CPU clock speed: 433 MHz;
 ISA compatibility: Support for both the MMX and 3DNow! x86 instruction-set
extensions; Athlon instruction set (including MMX and 3DNow! Enhanced) with
additional Geode-specific instructions;
 Companion chips: PCI and memory interface integrated with CPU; North Bridge: PCI
and Memory Interface integrated with Geode CPU; AMD CS5536 South Bridge;
 Graphics controller: Integrated with Geode CPU; unified memory architecture;
 Embedded controller: ENE KB3700 or ENE KB3700B;
 DRAM memory:
 256 MiB dynamic RAM;
 Data rate: Dual — DDR333 — 166 MHz;
 1024 KB SPI-interface flash ROM;
 Mass storage: 1024 MiB SLC NAND flash, high-speed flash controller;
 Drives: No rotating media;
 CAFE ASIC (Camera, Flash Enabler chip, provides high-performance Camera, NAND
FLASH and SD interfaces); Marvell 88ALP01: (CAFE specification).

Display

 Liquid-crystal display: 7.5” Dual-mode TFT display;

 Viewing area: 152.4 mm × 114.3 mm;
 Resolution: 1200 (H) × 900 (V) resolution (200 DPI);
 Monochrome display: High-resolution, reflective sunlight-readable monochrome
mode; Color display: Standard-resolution, Quincunx-sampled, transmissive color
mode;
 LCD power consumption: 0.1 watt with backlight off; 0.2–1.0 watt with backlight on;

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 The display-controller chip (DCON) with memory that enables the display to remain
live with the processor suspended; the display and this chip are the basis of the
extremely low power architecture; the display controller chip also enables de-
swizzling and anti-aliasing in colour mode.

Integrated peripherals

 Keyboard: 80+ keys, 1.0 mm stroke; sealed rubber-membrane key-switch assembly;

 Keyboard layout pictures: international, Thai, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, West
African, Urdu, Mongolian, Cyrillic, Amharic;
 Gamepad: Two sets of four-direction cursor-control keys;
 Touchpad: Dual capacitance/resistive touchpad; supports written-input mode; ALPS
Electric Dual capacitive/resistive touchpad;
 Audio: AC97-compatible audio audio subsystem; internal stereo speakers and
amplifier; internal monophonic microphone; jacks for external headphones and
microphone; Analog Devices AD1888 and Analog Devices SSM2211 for audio
amplification;
 Wireless networking: Integrated 802.11b/g (2.4 GHz) interface; 802.11s (Mesh)
networking supported; dual adjustable, rotating coaxial antennas; supports diversity
reception; capable of mesh operation when CPU is powered down; Marvell Libertas
88W8388 controller and 88W8015 radio;
 Status indicators: Power, battery, WiFi (2); visible when lid is open or closed;
microphone in-use and camera in-use visible when lid is open;
 Video camera: integrated color vision camera; 640×480 resolution at 30 Hz;
Omnivision OV7670.

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Battery

 Pack type: 2 or 4 cells LiFePO4; or 5 cells NiMH, approximately 6 V series

configuration;
 Capacity: 22.8 watt-hours (LiFePO4); 16.5 watt-hours (NiMH);
 Fully enclosed "hard" case; user removable;
 Electronics integrated with pack provide:
o Identification;
o Battery charge and capacity information;
o Thermal and over-current sensors along with cut-off switch to protect
battery;
 Minimum 2,000 charge/discharge cycles (to 50% capacity of new)

1.6) Distribution

Distribution Model

The laptops are sold to governments, to be distributed through the ministries of

education with the goal of distributing "one laptop per child". The laptops are given to
students, similar to school uniforms and ultimately remain the property of the child. The
operating system and software is localized to the languages of the participating
countries.

Early deployments

Approximately 500 developer boards (Alpha-1) were distributed in mid-2006; 875

working prototypes (Beta 1) were delivered in late 2006; 2400 Beta-2 machines were
distributed at the end of February 2007; full-scale production started November 6,
2007. Around one million units were manufactured in 2008.

Give 1 Get 1 program

OLPC initially stated that no consumer version of the XO laptop was planned. The
project, however, later established the laptopgiving.org website to accept direct
donations and ran a "Give 1 Get 1" (G1G1) offer starting on November 12, 2007. The
offer was initially scheduled to run for only two weeks, but was extended until
December 31, 2007 to meet demand. With a donation of $399 (plus US$25 shipping
cost) to the OLPC "Give 1 Get 1" program, donors received an XO-1 laptop of their own
and OLPC sent another on their behalf to a child in a developing country. Shipments of
"Get 1" laptops sent to donors were restricted to addresses within the United States, its
territories, and Canada.

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Some 83,500 donors participated in the program. Delivery of all of the G1G1 laptops was
completed by April 19, 2008. Delays were blamed on order fulfilment and shipment
issues both within OLPC and with the outside contractors hired to manage those aspects
of the G1G1 program.

Give 1 Get 1 2008

Between November 17 and December 31, 2008, a second G1G1 program was run
through Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. This partnership was chosen specifically to
solve the distribution issues of the G1G1 2007 program. The price to consumers was the
same as in 2007, at USD$399.

The program aimed to be available worldwide. Laptops could be delivered in the USA, in
Canada and in more than 30 European countries, as well as in some Central and South
American countries (Colombia, Haiti, Peru, Uruguay, and Paraguay), African countries
(Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Madagascar, Rwanda) and Asian countries (Afghanistan,
Georgia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nepal). Despite this, the program sold only about 12,500
laptops and generated a mere $2.5 million – a 93 percent decline from the year before.

1.7) Deployment of XO Laptops

Confirmed
Year number Date confirmed Purchaser
(approximate)
100,000 October 2007 Uruguay
15,000 November 14, 2007 Birmingham, Alabama, United States
2007 260,000 December 1, 2007 Peru
50,000 December 1, 2007 Mexico (Mexican businessman Carlos Slim)
167,000 January 5, 2008 G1G1 2007 program
65,000 May 29, 2008 Colombia (Caldas)
+200,000 June 2008 Uruguay
2008 +30,000 October 2008 Peru
10,000 November 10, 2008 Ghana
12,500 January 9, 2009 G1G1 2008 program
5,000 April 24, 2009 Sierra Leone
2009 100,000 May 14, 2009 Rwanda
+160,000 October 13, 2009 Uruguay (total: 362,000 children, 18000 teachers)
+260,000 March 17, 2010 Peru
2010
+60,000 April 13, 2010 Argentina
Total 1,494,500    

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Participating countries

In October 2007, Uruguay placed an order for 100,000 laptops, making Uruguay the first
country to purchase a full order of laptops. The first real, non-pilot deployment of the
OLPC technology happened in Uruguay in December 2007. Since then, 200,000 more
laptops have been ordered to cover all public school children between 6 and 12 years
old.

President Tabaré Vázquez of Uruguay presented the final laptop at a school

in Montevideo on 13 October 2009. Over the last two years 362,000 pupils and 18,000
teachers have been involved, and has cost the state $260 (£159) per child, including
maintenance costs, equipment repairs, training for the teachers and internet
connection. The annual cost of maintaining the programme, including an information
portal for pupils and teachers, will be US$21 (£13) per child.

The country reportedly became the first in the world where every primary school child
received a free laptop on 13 October 2009 as part of the Plan Ceibal (Education
Connect). However, the South Pacific island nation of Niue also claimed this in August
2008.

Laptops have been delivered to the following countries, either following an order or as
part of the Give One Get One program:

 Africa and Middle East

o Ethiopia (5,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)

o Gaza (2,100 laptops received)

o Ghana (10,000 laptops ordered)

o Rwanda (20,000 laptops received from G1G1 program, 100,000 laptops

ordered)

o Sierra Leone (5,000 laptops ordered)

 Americas

o Argentina (60,000 laptops ordered)

o Colombia (4,000 laptops ordered)

o Haiti (13,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)

o Mexico (50,000 laptops ordered by businessman Carlos Slim)

o Peru (550,000 laptops ordered, most recently in March 2010)

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o United States of America (15,000 laptops ordered by Birmingham, Alabama)

o Uruguay (380,000+ given to 1-6 students and teachers, completing the initial
objective. 90,000 ordered in 2010 for high-school students.)

 Asia

o Afghanistan (11,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)

o Cambodia (3,200 laptops received from G1G1 program)

o Mongolia (10,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)

 Oceania

o Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands,
Tuvalu, Vanuatu (5,000 laptops received from G1G1 program)

o Australia (5,000 laptops ordered by the independent non-profit OLPC

Australia)

OLPC in the United States

Originally OLPC announced the United States would not be part of this effort. In 2008,
Nicholas Negroponte said "OLPC America already has a director and a chairman and will
likely be based in Washington, D.C.," however such an organization was not set up. As of
2010, Birmingham, Alabama is the largest deployment in the US. Some said the changing
economic landscape forced OLPC to adjust their distribution strategy. Negroponte cited
patriotism, "building critical mass", and providing a means for children all over the world
to communicate.

Countries with pilot projects

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Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of Brazil, with a prototype

In Najmi, Al Muthanna Governorate, Iraq

In addition to pilot projects in the participating countries listed above, pilot projects
(from a few dozen to a few hundred laptops) took place or are currently taking place in
the following countries (see also Google map of OLPC pilot projects):

 Africa – Middle-East

o Iraq (Najmi)

o Lebanon (Sabra and Shatila camps)

o Madagascar (Ambatoharanana)

o Mali (Quessoborgo)

o Mozambique (Zambezia)

o Nigeria (Abuja)

o South Africa

o Tanzania (Iringa and Dar es Salaam)

o Yemen (Sana'a)

 Americas

o Brazil (Porto Alegre, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro[Piraí])

o Canada(Inuit, Métis and First Nations Communities)

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o Nicaragua (Rivas)

o Paraguay

o Suriname (Paramaribo)

o Virgin Islands (St John)

 Asia

o India (Khairat)

o Nepal (Lalitpur)

o Pakistan (Rawalpindi)

o Philippines (Manila)

o Thailand (Ban Samkha)

Other interested countries

The following countries have shown interest in the past, but no concrete projects have
resulted up to now:

 Africa: Egypt, Libya, Nigeria, Tunisia

 Americas: Argentina, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic

 Asia: Sri Lanka

 Europe: Greece

1.8) Criticism

Controversy regarding mission

OLPC's dedication to "Free and open source" was questioned with their May 15, 2008,
announcement that large-scale purchasers would be offered the choice to add an extra
cost, special version of the proprietary Windows XP OS developed
by Microsoft alongside the regular, free and open Linux-based "Sugar" OS. James
Utzschneider, from Microsoft, said that initially only one operating system could be
chosen. OLPC, however, said that future OLPC work would enable XO-1 laptops to dual
boot either the free and open Linux/Sugar OS or the proprietary Microsoft Windows XP.
Negroponte further said that "OLPC will sell Linux-only and dual-boot, and will not sell

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Windows-only [XO-1 laptops]". OLPC released the first test firmware enabling XO-1 dual-
boot on July 3, 2008.

OLPC's stated ethos that "It's an education project, not a laptop project" was
contradicted according to Ivan Krstić, OLPC's former Director of Security Architecture

Negroponte and Charles Kane made statements explaining OLPC's decision to enable

XO-1 laptops to dual-boot either open source Fedora or proprietary Microsoft Windows
XP:

Nicholas Negroponte says that within OLPC, the open-source scrap had become a
distraction. "I think that means and ends, as often happens, got confused," he says. "The
mission is learning and children. The means of achieving that were, amongst others,
open source and constructionism. In the process of doing that, open source in particular
became an end in itself, and we made decisions along the way to remain very pure in
open source that were not in the long-term interest of the project." —Nicholas
Negroponte, May 2, 2008.

"The OLPC mission is a great endeavour, but the mission is to get the technology in the
hands of as many children as possible," [Charles Kane] said. "Whether that technology is
from one operating system or another, one piece of hardware or another, or supplied or
supported by one consulting company or another doesn't matter."

"It's about getting it into kids' hands," he continued. "Anything that is contrary to that
objective, and limits that objective, is against what the program stands for." — Charles
Kane, OLPC President and COO, May 2, 2008.

Other discussions question whether OLPC laptops should be designed to promote

anonymity or to facilitate government tracking of stolen laptops. A recent New
Scientist article critiqued Bitfrost's P_THEFT security option, which allows each laptop to
be configured to transmit an individualized, non-repudiable digital signature to a central
server at most once each day to remain functioning.

Environmental issues

In 2005 and prior to the final design of the XO-1 hardware, OLPC received criticism
because of concerns over the environmental and health impacts of hazardous materials
found in most computers. The OLPC asserted that it aimed to use as
many environmentally friendly materials as it could; that the laptop and all OLPC-
supplied accessories would be fully compliant with the EU's Restriction of Hazardous
Substances Directive (RoHS); and that the laptop would use an order of magnitude less
power than the typical consumer notebooks available as of 2007 thus minimizing the
environmental burden of power generation.

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The XO-1 delivered (starting in 2007) uses environmental friendly materials, complies
with the EU's RoHS and uses between 0.25 and 6.5 watts in operation. According to the
Green Electronics Council's Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool, whose
sole purpose is assessing and measuring the impact laptops have on the environment,
the XO is not only non-toxic and fully recyclable, but it lasts longer, costs less, and is
more energy efficient. The XO-1 is the first laptop to have been awarded an EPEAT Gold
level rating.

Nigeria

Lagos Analysis Corp., also called Lancor, a Lagos, Nigeria-based company, sued OLPC in
the end of 2007 for $20 million, claiming that the computer's keyboard design was
stolen from a Lancor patented device. OLPC responded by claiming that they had not
sold any multi-lingual keyboards in the design claimed by Lancor, and that Lancor had
misrepresented and concealed material facts before the court. In October 2008, the
Middlesex Superior Court granted OLPC’s motions to dismiss all of Lancor's claims
against OLPC, Nicholas Negroponte, and Quanta.

In 2007, XO laptops in Nigeria were reported to contain pornographic material belonging

to children partaking in the OLPC Program. In response, OLPC made plans for adding
content filters. The OLPC foundation maintained the position that such issues were
societal, not laptop related. Similar responses have led some to suggest the OLPC takes
an indifferent stance concerning this issue. According to Wayan Vota Senior Director
at Inveneo and founder of the independent OLPC News, "The use of computers to look
at porn is [a] social problem, not a hardware one... Children have to be taught what's
good and what's bad, based on the cultural context."

India

India's Ministry of Human Resource Development, in June 2006, rejected the initiative,

saying “it would be impossible to justify an expenditure of this scale on a debatable
scheme when public funds continue to be in inadequate supply for well-established
needs listed in different policy documents”. Later they stated plans to make laptops at
$10 each for schoolchildren.

Two designs submitted to the Ministry from a final year engineering student of Vellore
Institute of Technology and a researcher from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
in May 2007 reportedly describe a laptop that could be produced for "$47 per laptop"
for even small volumes. The Ministry announced in July, 2008 that the cost of their
proposed "$10 laptop" would in fact be $100 by the time the laptop became
available. This project is called Sakshat. In 2009 a combination of states announced plans
to order 250,000 OLPCs.

In 2010, a $35 Sakshat Tablet was unveiled in India.

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2) Product Planning for International Markets

The process of product planning should first define its business in that country on the
basis of objectives of both company and the host country. The company’s goals usually
may be defined in terms of activities (the manufacture of specific product, or export to a
particular market) financial indicators (to achieve a targeted return on investment),
desired position (market share and relative market leadership) etc.

The product planning for the $100 laptop consists of creating something new for the
export markets. This new product is a result of the firm’s own R&D and joint ventures
with business partners in other countries.

Once the decision regarding product to be sold in different countries has been taken, the
firm should also decide about the product line that will be sold in each overseas market.

The firm may enter with the same product line or develop some subset of full line, with
additional products that are not being sold in the domestic market for individual country
markets. The management of product line is more or less done on same lines. However,
here we discuss the factor influencing the decision on product lines.

- Client need, which may demand for product extension

- Competitor’s product line e.g. general motors &ford.

- Government regulations- government may restrict export of certain product for

security reasons thus asking for product elimination. Similarly host country may ask
company to enter into new area asking for diversification.

- Level of economic development of a country e.g. less developed economies usually

ask for simplified product line.

- Company’s method of growth is another factor; internal growth stressing company

usually has narrower and homogeneous product line.

For e.g. in India even the $100 laptop was not a feasible buy for the government and
they were looking for cheaper options such they could compromise on the processing
power and other specifications. Thus OLPC could have developed a different line for the
developing nations.

However since it’s a low cost product, economies of scale are hard to achieve in case
different product lines are maintained. Thus it was left to OLCP to convince the Indian
government about the advantages and trade-offs of the XO laptops.

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$100 Laptop – Product Management in International Markets

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$100 Laptop – Product Management in International Markets

References

 ^ a b "One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a low-cost, connected laptop for the world's
children's education". 2008-06-08. http://laptop.org/vision/index.shtml. Retrieved
2008-11-07. "Date based on wiki.laptop.org diffs"

 ^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q81TmwXe3ZM 14 minutes into the video

 ^ http://www.archive.org/iathreads/post-view.php?id=300273

 ^ Nicholas Negroponte (2008-05-16). "[sugar Microsoft"]. OLPC via Sugar mailing list
hosted at lists.laptop.org. http://lists.laptop.org/pipermail/sugar/2008-
May/005794.html. Retrieved 2008-07-07.

 ^ "Vision". http://www.laptop.org/vision/index.shtml. Retrieved 2008-06-13.

 ^ "Core principles - OLPC". http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Core_principles. Retrieved

2008-01-24.

 ^ Negroponte, Nicholas (1995). Being Digital. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0-679-43919-6.

 ^ "U.N. Lends Backing to the $100 Laptop". Associated Press. January 26, 2006.
http://www.linux.org/news/2006/01/27/0007.html. Retrieved 2006-01-27.

 ^ Donoghue, Andrew (2006-06-02). "$100 laptop 'will boost desktop Linux'". CNET
News.com. http://www.news.com/100-laptop-will-boost-desktop-Linux/2100-
1003_3-6079469.html. Retrieved 2006-08-19.

 ^ "'$100 laptop' targets East Africa". BBC News. 2010-04-29.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10091177.stm. Retrieved 2010-05-20.

 ^ "Intel Resigns From Board Of One Laptop Per Child".

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119940537839566305.html?
mod=hpp_us_whats_news. Retrieved 2008-01-03.

 ^ Tom Krazit, CNET News.com (2008-01-04). "Intel leaves OLPC after Classmate sale
embargo". ZDNet Australia. http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/hardware/soa/Intel-
leaves-OLPC-after-Classmate-sale-embargo/0,130061702,339284835,00.htm.
Retrieved 2008-06-16.

 ^ a b "Top OLPC Executive Resigns After Restructuring". PC World. 2008-04-21.

http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/144911/top_olpc_executive_resign
s_after_restructuring.html. Retrieved 2008-06-16.

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