[aprssig] OLPC $199 laptop again

[Jon K Hellan]

Scott Miller wrote:

> I found the Sugar interface clunky and confusing, and inconsistently 
> implemented.  As much as I'd like to see this project succeed, I'm 
> afraid I really don't have that much faith in it.  Not when regular 
> netbooks are heading into the same price range.  Maybe if the software 
> suite has really been drastically improved in the last 9 months, but I 
> haven't heard anything about that.
> 
> Considering how long it's taken this project to get moving, Moore's Law 
> is going to be their biggest problem.  The Simputer project ran into the 
> same problem - by the time they had a product, commercial PDAs and 
> handheld PCs were cheaper and faster.
>

The project organization basically imploded this year. Lots of key personnel left after vicious holy wars,
mostly over XP. Nicholas Negroponte was unable to sell the laptops *without* XP, the tech people felt that they
couldn't achieve the educational goals *with* XP.

See  e.g. http://radian.org/notebook/sic-transit-gloria-laptopi

Jon LA4RT