$35 touchscreen tablet

[kyonides]

According to this article, that's what India has now made possible.

[Ole Juul]

Re: $35 touchscreen tablet

India is a big country. I remember when Google was preparing to launch 1GB free e-mail accounts. Before they got it out, some Indian company said, "that's easy", and offered the same thing before Google could blink.

Anyway, we still have to see this tablet actually rolled out in numbers - but I have no doubt the can do it. I was just over at version2 and noticed they had a video if anybody wants to have a look.

[GreyGeek]

Re: $35 touchscreen tablet

A tablet computer that sells for just 3X the cost of Microsoft's XP license to OLPC?

Watch Microsoft do anything and everything to hijack it or kill it, just the way they did with OLPC.

http://arstechnica.com/hardware/news...ws-support.ars

and, one year later:

"Microsoft, OLPC officially team up":
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-9945438-56.html

What happened in between?

The dirty, sordid tale is told by one who was there and watched it happen:
http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/m...on_the_xo.html

A copy of the pertinent email is attached to this post.
Here is how the "negotiations" went down:

The entire purpose of the meeting is to help get XP on the OLPC. It is not a negotiation and there is no one representing the OLPC Project's interests - in fact, Marcelo Calure is extremely candid with the Microsoft representatives, revealing financial information about the OLPC project, board member's leanings, status of project engineering, personal insights on Nick's psychology, and much more valuable information. It's important to note that at the time of this meeting, Microsoft was not in any way a partner to OLPC - internally Microsoft figures it has about a 20%-25% chance of being accepted, and as is shown in the accompanying email discussion, already has a plan to compete directly with the OLPC if the proposal is rejected.
...
Marcelo and Rodrigo further give specifics on how Microsoft should present its proposal, make sure Microsoft gets it to all the board members - presumably because they now know the board members that are likely to support it - and also further agree to review it. So, not only is this not a one-off meeting, but part of a continuing effort to assist Microsoft. (We also see in the email discussion that Microsoft has another meeting with AMD coming up.)
...
We also see what I personally consider one of the saddest things about the meeting: Marcelo and Rodrigo agreeing that Nick needs acknowledgement from Bill Gates - the impact of this would be "very significant". To address this, Microsoft plans to draft up an email for Gates to send - my man can't even get a real email. The cold identification and exploitation of a human weakness seems especially brutal to me.
...
There also a little suggestion of the old quid pro quo, where a contribution of $10MM-$30MM to the MIT Media Lab might not cause offense.
...
After the re-cap there is some email discussion which is also illuminating. We see that Microsoft already has a back-up plan to compete with the OLPC:

"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 as visible history of our attempts to work with them and then we have to ask to get a license for the "open source hardware" and we will make our own offering on the commercial side."

The duplicity of Microsoft trying to create a "long and visible" record that directly contrasts the actual dealings may or may not come as a surprise to the gentle reader.

The quid pro quo is handled a bit more subtly inside Microsoft - naturally, as they're quite practiced - and we learn that Microsoft Research already intends to reduce MIT Media Lab funding, but has not done so specifically because they don't want to "disrupt the negotiations".

Finally, in case you think I've failed to mention it: there is never any talk of "the best technology" or "educating or empowering children" or "customers/governments want Windows" or any such merit-based discussion. Outside of a brief mention of Academic Software offerings - literally the very last thing in the recap and suggested by the OLPC faction - the entire discussion revolves around what benefits Microsoft, what might hurt Google, and exploiting inside information they have on the OLPC project and OLPC people.

"Of the Microsoft arrangement, Mr. Negroponte said: 'We've stayed very pure."
New York Times, May 16. 2008

Ah, it's nice to think so, isn't it, Nick?

Reading the inside Microsoft emails about how they planned to subvert OLPC, getting Gates to send Negroponte an email, and then comparing that with the slant in the NewYork Times article is an eye opener. It classic Microsoft media management from top to bottom:

“Customers have come to us and said they really like the XO laptop and they would like to see Windows on it,” said James Utzschneider, manager of Microsoft’s developing markets unit.

One year after the NY Times article, we have this realization:
http://www.olpcnews.com/software/win...o_laptops.html

I've been wondering about what ever happened to these Windows XP-based OLPC trials. I haven't really heard anything about them in quite some time. Now more recently I've asked around and found there is a good reason why I haven't seen anything: countries are choosing Sugar over Windows XP for their XO deployments.

All Microsoft has to do is create their own $35 tablet with XP pre-installed. Or, kill the project. Any bets as to which they'll do?

As an aside: What will these $35 tablets be capable of doing? The OLPC specs include a 433 Mhz CPU box with 256Mb RAM and lots of standard peripherals, including a webcam. The $35 touchscreen table can do these things.

[GreyGeek]

Re: $35 touchscreen tablet

....
Anyway, we still have to see this tablet actually rolled out in numbers - but I have no doubt the can do it. I was just over at version2 and noticed they had a video if anybody wants to have a look.
...

I found it interesting that the article mentions a version of Linux as the OS, and open source software, but the video clip of the news cast said "no mention was made of the software used in the device, which usually drives up costs significantly". So, even though their own video clip said the costs included "everything", and it already has several kinds of applications, they failed to give any credit to Linux or FOSS. The comments sections has several referrals to XP and Win7.

[Ole Juul]

Re: $35 touchscreen tablet

There is a lot of "almost" information around about this. Perhaps that is intentional. Yes, GG, I have a feeling that MS will be jumping on this soon. Could this be part of the plan? Microsoft wants the world to start on Windows so they will get used to it. The first one's free kind of "pusher" approach, as I see it. So, perhaps if the Indians play their cards right they will achieve their goal anyway - to get a basic computer into the hands of as many Indians as possible.

That Danish article has errors anyway. I think it is supposed to be 2GB flash and 256MB RAM. The Reuters article is just as thin. Here is a piece of it:

"We have reached a (developmental) stage that today, the motherboard, its chip, the processing, connectivity, all of them cumulatively cost around $35, including memory, display, everything," he told a news conference.

He said the touchscreen gadget was packed with Internet browsers, PDF reader and video conferencing facilities but its hardware was created with sufficient flexibility to incorporate new components according to user requirement.

Sibal said the Linux based computing device was expected to be introduced to higher education institutions from 2011 but the aim was to drop the price further to $20 and ultimately to $10.

The more I look at this the more I think the announcement is intended to be provocative. Could they be deliberately trying to draw out Microsoft? Of course, $35 is just the cost of the parts minus shipping and handling, but then this is not supposed to be a for-money adventure. With government subsidies and other charitable resources drawn upon, I think they might be able to do it. In fact MS might be interested in contributing - pushers usually are. However, the price is completely irrelevant here. The idea is to make it as cheap as possible and to make it a reality for all kids (and others) to have a computer. That is the goal - not $35 or $20 or $10.

I wish them luck, but GG is right, keep your eye on Microsoft. They're going to be the next act in this play.

[perspectoff]

Re: $35 touchscreen tablet

Nah. There's no profit margin in a $35 computer. The only reason cell phones are inexpensive is because the money is made up on a 2 year service contract.

India's government is subsidizing the device. Microsoft won't bother.

My DVD player has Linux in it (it is basically DVD drive with embedded Linux). It sells for about $40 (Walmart). My HDTV has Linux in it.

Even so, a $35 device of any sort has to have a huge production to work. A $3 profit per device needs a lot of units moved to just break even.

BTW, ever seen a OLPC laptop? Or were Netbooks rolled out faster than the thing could take root?

Still, I don't see any $35 netbooks. Can't do it even if putting Windows XP on it.

Embedded Linux is the way of the future.