$100 Laptop For Sale: 2 For $399

No, I didn't make up that math; I think I might need a few OLPCs to help out with that. No. Not really.

The OLPC, which was originally billed to be the $100 Laptop back when Nicholas Negroponte had his name splashed everywhere. I wrote about the $100 laptop many times, and I have been pretty consistent with my perspective. When I read ''$100 laptop' to sell to public', I chuckled.

When it first came out, many people I know said that the laptop that could be produced at that price wouldn't be worth having - and at $399 for 2, you don't need an OLPC to figure out that it is still close to double the price.

The lesson here should be that great marketing doesn't get the rest of the work done. Granted, the tech folks involved with the project have done a pretty good job for what it is - but there was way too much hype and attempts to get buy in from governments which had failed to create the necessary environment that would have made the OLPC project nonsensical. In essence, trusting the governments who could not produce a proper environment to pay for and create an infrastructure for a custom built machine... seems foolhardy.

But now, all that money has been spent on R&D, largely in the United States (instead of employing people in the developing nations) and they have to defray costs somehow. The usual answer is 'sell it to the developing nations'.

It seems to be a travesty being wrung, and the term G1G1 is reminiscent of GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. It is a pity that some smart people got roped into this, but I'm sure that the technology dealt with will eventually find some use somewhere.