requires a significant change in pedagogy and that might reduce teacher status.^b Even when the laptops are adopted, they are not always used as envisioned by OLPC or by education ministers. One Peruvian teacher said, “The ministry would want us to use the laptop every day for long periods of time. But we have decided to set rules in our school and, really, the laptop, it’s only a tool for us.” ¹⁰

Such resistance is no surprise to students of innovation diffusion or of IT for development. Rogers¹⁸ pointed to examples where innovation diffusion failed due to cultural norms and the effects of such innovation on existing institutional arrangements. Avgerou² noted that attitudes toward hierarchy are particularly problematic in developing countries. An example illustrating both themes is that the Peruvian experiment was initiated without being explained to the national teachers’ union. ¹⁰ OLPC has strong support from the Peruvian Education Ministry, but ultimately teachers must actually use the machines in the classroom, and they are likely to see the union as an ally while possibly mistrusting the ministry.

The fact that OLPC was much stronger in developing innovative technology than in understanding how to diffuse it may reflect the engineering orientation of the organization and its lack of understanding of the needs or interests of the nontechnical people who will ultimately buy and use the innovation. This is illustrated by David Cavallo, OLPC’s chief education architect, saying, “We’re hoping that these countries won’t just make up ground but will jump into a new educational environment.” ⁹ Expecting a laptop to cause such revolutionary change showed a degree of naiveté, even for an organization with the best intentions and smartest people.

PhotograPh by mike Lee

Competitive Response from the PC industry The OLPC project was a potential threat to the PC industry in emerging markets. OLPC’s use of an AMD microprocessor and Linux operating system was a potential threat to the dominant position and historically high profit margins of Intel and Microsoft. Its targeting of a new market (developing-country

XO features.

indicator Light microphone usB Port speaker

antennae

Directional Pad

screen Rotate storage access

Wi-fi access

indicator Light
Camera
usB Ports
speaker

Game Buttons Battery Light Power Button Power Light sD slot

stylus area/ touch Pad mouse Buttons

 

Latch

 

schools) that existing PC makers were not serving raised the prospect that OLPC might gain a foothold in emerging markets more generally. Moreover, the XO’s ultra-low price raised the likelihood of a new price point for notebooks, potentially forcing PC makers to cannibalize existing low-end products in order to compete (and is what ultimately happened).

Branded PC makers have always faced competition from cheap local brands and clone makers in developing countries, but OLPC threatened to grab a share of education budgets worldwide that PC makers hoped to tap for themselves. Negroponte’s high-profile announcement of the project and the publicity he garnered quickly caught the industry’s attention.

Leading companies first responded by disparaging the XO as a useless toy. Intel’s Craig Barrett called it “a gadget,” saying people want the full functionality of a PC. Bill Gates said “...geez, get

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a decent computer where you can actually read the text and you’re not sitting there cranking the thing while you’re trying to type.” ¹¹ Before long, however, the industry began to respond with action, not just words.

In 2006, Intel introduced a small laptop—the Classmate—for developing countries that today sells for $230–$300. Intel has since licensed the Classmate reference design to PC makers to manufacture and distribute and

is marketing it aggressively against the XO worldwide. It secured deals to sell hundreds of thousands of Classmates in Libya, Nigeria, and Pakistan, some of the very countries OLPC was counting on. Intel launched a series of pilot projects in these countries, saying it will also test the Classmate in at least 22 others while donating thousands of machines. ²¹ Intel briefly joined OLPC in July 2007 but got into a nondispar-agement dispute with Negroponte and dropped out only seven months later. ¹⁴

In 2007, Microsoft offered to make available Windows, a student version of Microsoft Office, and educational programs to developing countries for $3 per copy when used on computers in schools. OLPC then decided to allow Windows on the XO, a choice driven by demands from some governments for Windows-based PCs. Even in countries with very low levels of PC penetration, officials who make purchasing decisions may favor a technology standard (the Wintel design) they are familiar with or believe children must learn on systems they will encounter later in the work force.

The OLPC project also stimulated innovation in low-cost, low-power PCs. Seeing OLPC’s success in developing a sub-$200 notebook, Asustek introduced the EeePC notebook in 2007 for the educational and consumer markets in both developed and developing countries, selling more than 300,000