News Analysis. Microsoft's OWPC initiative has succeeded, nicely. Apparently, Sugar isn't so sweet.
But will the alternative be any tastier? That's the question to ask as the drama around OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) becomes the ever-growing soap opera. High-level executive departures, a near-$200 laptop price instead of the planned 100 bucks and now Windows XP pushing out Sugar OS. Somebody wants to influence the world's youth.
Microsoft made its announcement late yesterday, and I almost blogged it before going to bed. But this one needed a fresh mind to grapple with all the nuances behind the drama.
Microsoft's announcement is simple: OLPC will license Windows XP for its XO laptop. Trials will start in June in some emerging markets, which Microsoft's press release doesn't identify. Fortunately, Microsoft's Unlimited Potential blog is more forthcoming. James Utzschneider, marketing and communications general manager for Microsoft's Unlimited Potential group, blogged:
"The offering will RTM [release to manufacturing] in August or September. Initially it will only be available in emerging market countries where governments or NGOs [non-government organizations] are subsidizing the purchase of a large number of PCs for students, but there is the possibility of making this available for other customers through a broader set of channels at a later point in time."
James is refreshingly frank about Microsoft's objectives:
"From our perspective, Windows on the XO is a nice addition to the portfolio of products and services Microsoft has created to help transform education, one of the key themes of Unlimited Potential...The Windows port to the XO is a snappy release that doesn't cut features or functionality in order to work in the constrained memory and storage environment of the XO...Why is Microsoft doing this? The answer is simple: people are asking for it—it transforms education and it leads to the creation of jobs and opportunity."
Follow the Spiritual Leader
Maybe Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates always will be the company's spiritual leader. I find interesting that Microsoft is putting so much emphasis on emerging markets at the same time Bill is transitioning from full-time monopolist to philanthropist. Microsoft puts a real charitable PR spin to its Unlimited Potential program, which isn't philanthropy. It's business. Microsoft wants to sell more products in more markets. The charitable facade is part of the sales effort.
Yes, Microsoft is helping people. But it's not like Mother Theresa work, where the personal benefit is satisfaction of giving. Microsoft profits from its Unlimited Potential work. Cheap XO PCs running Linux interferes with future Microsoft profits, since the company's software and the majority of its services require Windows.
Sorry, but I would be embarrassed to work on what I call the One Windows Per Child program. For too long emerging markets have received cast-off goods, clothes and even pharmaceuticals from so-called mature markets. Microsoft's modern operating system is Windows Vista, but XO laptops will instead get 8-year-old Windows XP. I concede there are limitations. Vista demands too much hardware resources to run on low-powered, flash-based devices such as XO. But that's a problem of Microsoft's making.
Worth noting: Bill may be pushing along the charitable path, but Microsoft isn't wholly following. I don't see Bill advocating second-best anything for emerging markets. In that respect, he's more unlimited potential-minded than his company.
Conflicting Interests
OLPC's approach certainly is imperfect. There is plenty of justified criticism. But at least founder Nicholas Negroponte initially tried to find compromise by creating something new, yet affordable, for emerging markets. That goes for the hardware design and Linux-based Sugar OS. But charitable work often encounters opposition from businesses with conflicting interests.
For example, Intel has been a vocal critic of the OLPC program. Early on, Microsoft executives criticized the XO—Bill on several occasions, including a January 2006 speech before the World Economic Forum. A cheap, Linux laptop for students could disrupt Microsoft's emerging market business objectives.
The decision to adopt Windows XP appears to have caused conflict and division within OLPC. Many charitable organizations produce even bigger egos than do businesses and with surprisingly less willingness to adapt. In March, Ivan Krstic left OLPC because of changing goals, which some people assumed had to do with Windows XP. He blogged:
"Not long ago, OLPC undertook a drastic internal restructuring coupled with what, despite official claims to the contrary, is a radical change in its goals and vision from those that were shared with me when I was invited to join the project."
About a month later, Walter Bender also left OLPC. Walter and Ivan were two of the principal developers working on Sugar OS. Walter's exit statement says nothing specifically about Windows XP on XO. However, he was reportedly demoted as head of Software and Content before the departure.
Do You Want Sugar or Spice?
The decision to adopt Windows XP, and quite possibly to abandon Sugar, surely has no one cause. The aforementioned business and internal OLPC conflicts must be some reason. Windows familiarity may be another reason. As Microsoft has learned with Windows Vista, something new is harder sell when businesses or consumers are satisfied with something familiar (Windows XP).
I don't doubt James when he writes that some "people are asking" for Windows. But who are these people? Governments and NGOs want what for their students? The more pressing concern is what they want for their local economies today. Microsoft has partners pretty much everywhere. It's in better position to attach additional products and services to Windows than Sugar OS. I highly doubt that students are rising up demanding XP over Sugar. In many geographies, the kids would be happy just to get the laptop, regardless of operating system. For Microsoft, One Windows Per Child is the only program, if anybody asks.
For now, OLPC recipients will choose from either a Sugar or Windows XO laptop. But James blogged:
"OLPC plans to write a new BIOS and increase the amount of flash storage on the XO to support a 'dual-boot' option that would enable children to use either Linux or Windows on the same machine. This is fine with us as long there continues to be an excellent Windows experience on the XO."
The last sentence asserts Microsoft's business priority as superseding OLPC's objectives. Read the sentence again. Read it in context of James' entire blog post.
Microsoft is licensing Windows XP Home, not Professional, for devices such as XO. So how will schools network the computers? Peer to peer? Unmodified XP Home doesn't connect to a network domain. It's one of the many problems associated with offering something old, or, in the case of Windows Starter Edition, something less.
I can't say that Sugar is the best real-world, practical operating system choice for XO. But its development is a commendable effort, and the OLPC Wiki chronicles lots of Sugar and XO success, without ever offering Windows XP.
One Laptop Too Many?
In the end, OLPC's biggest problem may be the fundamental concept: one laptop per child. On several occasions when criticizing XO, Bill said the cell phone would be a better choice. He is absolutely right. In most emerging markets, the cell phone is the first Internet-capable computing device, not the PC.
Some people call the phenomenon "technology skip," where a market jumps over one class of product for something newer. As cell phones get smarter, wireless data bandwidth increases and smart phone costs decline, the mobile device makes more sense as alternative to the PC.
Technology skip would bring bleeding-edge, or at least current, products to emerging markets. It's where these markets can leap ahead of mature ones built up around older technologies. It's also an area where Microsoft does offer current, rather than old, software or services.
For some people, the future of computing will be a smart phone running Windows Mobile 7 connected to Live Mesh. Will the combination release their, uh, unlimited potential?
