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September 29, 2005
The Extraordinary Story of the $100 Laptop
Don't get me wrong. I think Nicholas Negroponte's idea of developing a $100 laptop, running a very thin version of Linux and with some of the most innovative examples of power saving and power generation in a laptop device ever created, is truly inspiring. I applaud Negroponte for his continuing belief in the power of technologies in changing cuture, and the future of human society. For a start, it's great to see such optimism. But it's also interesting to see how aspects of Negroponte's vision have been realised over the past decade, since the release of his manifesto, Being Digital.
But I'm also interested in the commentary associated with the $100 device. Several commentators have brought up the issue of the so-called 'grey market' (as opposed to 'black market') of recipients of the $100 laptop selling the device to buyers in order to raise cash to eat. Negroponte doesn't know how to deal with that. What's more there are cultural imperialism and even legal issues that can arise from rolling out such devices. In a ZD-Net blog post on the subject, David Berlind cites his interview with Negroponte on the subject.
I asked Negroponte how he felt about the Catch-22 proposition that's created when a government like China hands systems like his out to all of its primary and secondary school students while at the same time stifling their ability to use the systems to exercise freedom of speech through technologies like blogs (the Chinese government is cracking down on bloggers). Answered Negroponte: It's a Trojan horse. Uh huh.
To be honest, I don't think that's the key issue with developing these devices for the China market. The biggest problem in China will be the scam duplicates that will appear on the black market within months of the devices being released. The Chinese are masters in the art of duplicating or faking original products. Give them a year or two and they will have hardware and software that are either fakes of the original at a fraction of the price, or they will develop a cut down version of the cut down machine and try to sell these back to their people and their government, outselling the developers of the MIT prototype. And it's not just a matter of getting the Chinese Government to "do something" about piracy (ie: regulation, criminalisation, police crack downs). The Chinese economy is actually booming partly because of this art of duplication. I doubt whether any action taken will be particularly effective until the labour rates and working conditions in China catch up with those enjoyed in western nations. (And for what it's worth, John Ralston Saul estimates this will occur around 2010 or 2015 at the very latest.)
It will be interesting to see how this project progresses.
Posted by jj at September 29, 2005 9:12 AM
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since the cost of the software (linux in this case) is $0, any cutting of the price needed to build the hardware is something to be welcomed.
Posted by: westyx ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.joannejacobs.net/nav-commenters.gif)
at September 29, 2005 10:53 AM
(after having just read a news item on the laptop) *i'd* buy one.
Posted by: westyx at September 29, 2005 10:55 AM
I probably should copy a message I sent to the Association for Internet Researchers about why I think grey market issues and devaluing as a result of scam imitations is an issue....
____________________________________________
I agree that the objective is to drive down the price of the technology. But that's not what a *scam* imitation will do.
Let me explain with an example. My partner recently returned from Shenzhen in China with a USB flash card, badged as a Sony VAIO device, and claiming to store 4GB of data. He picked this device up for about US$30. He put it into his machine, and sure enough the device registered as storing 4GB of data. But once you actually put more than 128MB of data on the device, and tried to access any of the files, it would simply stop functioning and could not even be reformatted again.
The object of the scam imitation was not to drive the price of USB thumb drives down, but to *appear* to operate as a 4GB device whilst actually using cheaper parts, rebadged.
To be honest I have no problem with knockoff devices if they function with the same or similar integrity of the originals. And I hate buying labels just because they are labels. My concern is with devices that appear to operate in accordance with specifications but actually do not.
Economically, the effect of such an eventuality is actually to *drive prices of original devices up*. Because there is a need to delineate the real from the knock-off, the "De Beers effect" arises, and legitimate companies need to invest in expensive watermarking of products to ensure product integrity - and without a doubt the cost of developing such proof of product integrity is passed on to the consumer.
It's probably more of an economic argument than a technological one. But it's still a concern that needs to be addressed.
Posted by: jj at September 29, 2005 11:09 AM
I used to work for a hardware manufacturer that had cheap knock-offs of its products sold in china.
At least 2 bad things happened:
1) The knock-offs were crap, and the bad-quality reputation bled over to the real products.
2) The knock-offs were packaged with copies of our manuals and software, which contained our contact email/phone. This meant that when people had problems with the knock-offs, they would call us. Even the time spent to find out they were using knock-off version and saying we couldn't help them, cost a lot.
Posted by: qwijibo at September 29, 2005 10:15 PM
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