Orbit Change Conversations

Among all the one-laptop-per-child (OLPC) efforts that are going on, my favorite is Negoroponte’s XO-1. I have written earlier…

Out of the three OLPC efforts only XO-1 has really broken away from the traditional architecture. The other two are defeaturization plays. I am willing to stick my neck out to say that they are unlikely to succeed. I am pretty convinced that XO-1 will be the largest selling laptop of 2007. But they have a chink in their armor. They are too reliant on the top-down selling model of getting governments to buy their laptops. Hopefully they will focus on overcoming this limitation in their business model.

I have looking out for the XO-1 reviews. There aren’t many of them yet since XO-1 is still between “showtime” and “primetime”.

[As an aside, showtime and primetime are important milestones in the semiconductor world that have some relevance here. When a new chipset comes off the foundry, it’s pretty useless without its drivers, software framework and reference designs. It’s only when all these things get together, usually in a jury-rigged setup, that some meaningful demos can be done. This milestone is called “showtime”. Later, when actual devices carrying the chipset hit the market, and production volumes build-up, the “primetime” milestone is reached. Of course, the goal is to squeeze the interval between foundry roll-off, showtime and primetime.]

There are the usual sets of reviews where people are arguing whether the clean break from Windows GUI is good or bad. I am not interested in that discussion since I have already (and perhaps wrongly) made up my mind. But what really catches my eye is a user-centric review by Paul Saffo. Those of you who don’t know Paul Saffo, he is one of the leading technology forecasters of our time. He is currently teaching at Stanford and is on a research sabbatical from Institute for the Future. This is what he has to say about XO-1 after playing with it for some time…

The latest design is the cutest computer since the original 128k Mac and versatile as well – for example, twist the screen and it transforms into a nifty reader (see below) complete with a handle in the right place. Now “cute” may seem frivolous, but consistent with Negroponte’s rigorous thinking of the entire concept, cute is essential. As he explained, the way one keeps these computers from being broken is to make the kids fall in love with them, to keep them close by and generally make them their own. “No one ever washes a rented car,” and thus to survive these little computers need to be intimate companions of loving owners.

Other neat details include a robust self-organizing mesh network that allows interesting communication possibilities among local machines…

I could go on and on about everything that makes this innovative machine wonderful, but the top line is that I am more convinced than ever that the $100 laptop is going to be a breathtaking success.

If you come across a good review let me know.