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Founder of One Laptop Per Child Responds
,----[ Quote ]
| Anyway. I do not normally answer press and blogs, because we would spend
| all our time with words, not actions in the field But you are on a UN
| site and the UN is our partner. Check out Kofi Annanâs words -- they
| have been fulfilled. Has it been harder than I expected? Yes. But do you
| know why? It is not due to what I had anticipated, things like
| corruption and logistics. It has been due to commercial interests and
| press, stories like yours.
|
| As a small non-profit, humanitarian organization, it is hard to battle
| giants who view children as a market, not a mission, and have other
| agendas. In spite of all that, the change is huge. I no longer hear
| people arguing against âone laptop per childâ as a concept. The issue is
| purely a matter of funding and there are many ways to do that. Wait and
| see.
`----
http://www.undispatch.com/node/8867
Free laptops for students
,----[ Quote ]
| Under this program, 1,250 laptop computers will be distributed to
| students in 13 schools.
`----
http://www.dailynews.lk/2009/09/11/news20.asp
In Defense of OLPC and the XO Laptop
,----[ Quote ]
| I think the confusing messaging that's come from OLPC leadership (is it
| a laptop project or an education project? Does it cost $100? $50? $205?
| Is it a trojan horse sneaking open source into the classroom in the
| guise of an ebook?
`----
http://www.olpcnews.com/commentary/press/in_defense_of_olpc_xo_laptop.html
âTheyâll get sort of addicted, and then weâll somehow figure out how to
collect
sometime in the next decade.â
--Bill Gates
_____
From: Martin Taylor
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 8:45 PM
To: Orlando Ayala
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
Yikes. We should see how we can âtargetâ the funds for the specific
research.
There is a way to position this around MSFT willing to possibly give MORE
if
they do research on stuff that is mutually interesting. It could make
sense. I
think this is how Samsung structures there deal with Media labs.
- -MT
From: Orlando Ayaia
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:59 PM
To: Martin Taylor
Subject: FW: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
gong backwards!
From: Craig Mundie
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:57 PM
To: Orlando Ayala; Will Poole; Tom Phillips; Rick Thompson; Mike Sievert
Cc: Craig Fiebig
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
Targeted only at Media Lab. They are increasing investments at MIT overall
I
think (although our $25M five year deal on eCampus is also coming to an
end
this year I think). With Media Lab, they want to fund specific research
but
not put the money into the big general fundâ
From: Orlando Ayaia
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:54 PM
To: Craig Mundie; Will Poole; Tom Phillips; Rick Thompson; Mike Sievert
Cc: Craig Fiebig
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
is the reduction in funding part of a larger strategy to reduce overall
that
type of investment or targeted specifically to MIT?
From: Craig Mundie
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:51 PM
To: Will Poole; Orlando Ayala; Tom Phillips; Rick Thompson; Mike Sievert
Cc: Craig Fiebig
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
Rashid has already determined that MSR doesnât want to continue even at
their
current level of funding for the Media Lab and MIT, but I have gotten them
to
hold off for a quater so that it didnât disrupt these negotiation. If
there is
anything with the Media Lab from MSR it will be smaller and more directed
I
think. Other than that, we would have to find some other organization,
either
my TCI work, or the products group, that wanted to fund that Media Lab and
that is a start-from-scratch analysis.
6/26/2006
Page 2:
From: Will Poole
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:15 PM
To: Orlando Ayala; Craig Mundie; Tom Phillips; Rick Thompson; Mike Sievert
Cc: Craig Fiebig
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
I agree with the structure of the offer and also with Craigâa point below.
I do not think we should put any big funding/donation on the table for
media
lab as part of this discussion. It is likely OK to give back-channel
indication that weâd be open to reviewing their plans in the future. But
Rick
Rashid should approve whatever messaging we give in this area.
I think we should name our new open source license and romance its
creation. âEducation Open Sourceâ or something like that. And offer that
commercial terms can be established under such an agreement, thus enabling
the
best of open source and commercial software environments.
Agree we need to manage the billg messaging carefully. Bill is on the road
starting either tomorrow or Wed. I recommend getting the mail from him
done/sent early.
The biz model subsidization point is expected, and concerns me a lot.
Clearly
we donât want a world where weâre flat footed as Google figures out how to
give states or countries $x in hardware subsidy based on the devices being
somehow locked to google search. Tom, I recommend you loop someone in MSN
into
a discussion on this point. Maybe start with Bruce Jaffee.
Will
** Sent from Windows Vista Beta-2 CTP **
From: Orlando Ayaia
Sent: Monday, October 17, 2005 3:01 PM
To: Craig Mundie; Tom Phillips; Will Poole; Rick Thompson; Mike Sievert
Cc: Craig Fiebig
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
Craig.. I assume you finally support the structure of the MS offer as it
stands
today?
From: Craig Mundie
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2005 9:47 PM
To: Tom Phillips; Will Poole; Rick Thompson; Mike Sievert
Cc: Orlando Ayaia; Craig Fiebig
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
Remember that a key part of our strategy is to create a situation where
even if
Nick rejects us for philosophical reasons there is a long and visible
history
of our attempts to work with them and then we have to ask to get a license
for
the âopen source hardwareâ and we will make our own offering on the
commercial
side.
From: Tom Phillips
Sent: Sunday, October 16, 2005 8:48 PM
To: Will Poole; Craig Mundie; Rick Thompson; Mike Sievert
Cc: Orlando Ayaia; Craig Fiebig
Subject: RE: Recap of our meeting today with Rodrigo and Marcelo
6/26/2006
Page 3: (Page 4 tomm)
Executive Overview:
On Sunday, October 16th, we meet with Rodrigo Arboleda and Marcelo Claure
(Brightstar President and CEO) in Miami to discuss the work with the
OLPCA.
The Microsoft attendees of this meeting were OrlandoA, CFiebig, and TomPh.
In
this meeting we sought additional due diligence on the OLPC project and to
pilot the proposal to identify issues or areas that need additional work.
The meeting begin with a question by Marcelo on wether Microsoft felt the
OLPC
project would be successful without its involvement. We approched the
question
indicating that while the project could certianly be completed, Microsoft
involvement could be a significant benifit both in the reach of the
project
and the by our ability to get more done in a shorter timeframe. Marcelo
stated
that he was pleased that Microsoft was taking the project seriously, and
concurred that working together could be benificial. Another key question
for
Marcelo was whether Microsoft could coexist in a engineering project with
RedHat. We discussed this in the context of working with OEM partners that
provide both Windows and Linux products, and Marcelo appeared satisfied
with
the option that provided both a Windows and Linux offering. What followed
was
a discussion on the goals of the project, with the conclusion that there
is
clear goal alignment. The discussion then turned to our proposal, and the
area
that needed to be optimized to increase its likelihood of success.
Overall, it
was a very candid session that started and remained positive in tone. The
manority of the discussion was on areas of change, which are highlighted
below
in the Proposal Recommendations and Options for Consideration sections
below.
At the conclusion of this meeting, it was again clear that the central
issues
boils down to the OSS philosophy of Nick. In our meeting with Hector, he
insisted that AMD has the capability to shift Nick into a more realistic
state
ont he Open Source philosophy. The optimism of Hector was not shared by
Marcelo. A complecation factor is that the Board Member do not appear to
have
a deep understanding of Open Source, as evidenced by our discussion with
Marcelo. We spent a few minutes on open source and various licensing
models,
but this was all new to Marcelo. We did get agreement that this is a
complex
topic, but the counsel of Marcelo is to make this as simple as possible in
the
discussion as Nick does not do well with details.
Further, as Marcelo confided, and additional complication is the degree of
Microsoft bashing that has been a part of the board meeting and the
difficulty
of Nick change course without appearing to cave and counter his previous
statements. With all these factors in mind, we are not advocating a shift
in
course, but we do want to ensure that everyone on this email is cognizant
about the challenges ahead. We will outline below the go forward plan to
get
the emotion out of this topic, but it remains the single obstacle of
getting a
agreement in place.
In conclusion, going into the meeting, our confidence level in getting
Nick to
accept the Microsoft proposal was not high (between a 20-25% likelihood).
Leaving the meeting, there were some points for revisions in our approach,
but
the net confidence level still remains relatively low.
OLPCA & OLPC Updates:
Marcelo was very candid and provided some new details and updates on the
project. There were some points that were noteworthly, including the
following:
Status of the prototypes and engineering - Marcelo, who is the largest
Motorola
distributor and does device servicing and manufacturing, feels that the
status
of the prototype and engineeing is quite good. His statements reflected
excellent work between the OLPC and AMD, which sounds probable given the
excellent work that we have seen from AMD in projects such as the x86-64
project. There are three companies bidding to do the display work
according to
Marcelo, and he felt confident that the device engineering was on track.
The
area where there was concern was in the RedHat development, where he
confided
that there were concenrs about getting the work completed on the intended
timeline.
Current board members and the discussion process - In this meeting, there
appear to be a set of three Board members that are aligned on the
commercial
interests of the work, which are Hector Ruiz, Marcelo Claure, and Tom
Meredith
(former Dell CFO). In the view of Marcelo, these were also the primary
strong
business and excecution members on the board, and that Nick is leaning on
them
heavily as the project progresses for guidance.
OLPCA executive team being recruited - Over the course of the next three
weeks,
Marcelo indicated that a CEO would be hired, in adddition to other
principals
to run the business execution side of the project. In the discussion,
Marcelo
indicated that Nick recognizes that he does not have the business skills
to
run this project,
6/26/2006
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