I regret that I do not understand what is being argued here.. Are we for or against corporate success or marketing or what have you?..
>From the point of view of "Development" and technology for it, I would rather look at what gets achieved in terms of helping those who need help to get included in the "progress" that we achieve as a global society and create possibilities to make it more inclusive. If marketing does that, isn't that something we want? Marketing is but an instrument to extend the frontiers of progress. And we can also see it as an instrument of mopping profits. Much depends on how we see it. Any laptop will reside on top of an existing infrastructure and OLPC XO does not need anything more than what you and I need to access the world of technology enabled communication. In fact, what it needs is less than required for the world we seem to know a bit better as it has been designed to address and overcome those questions of infrastructure and other deficiencies. How does "corporate success" enter this discussion? If the ideas of technology for education and bridging the digital divide do converge, how do we want to achieve them? OLPC is a creative institution and having created the product would ideally like the world to take the next step of embracing and deploying it. However, how many of us can site a product, regardless of how needed and responsive to people's dream it may have been, really went beyond the its confines without a comprehensive marketing strategy? It will be educative and illustrative in this context. It has been successful in Uruguay and you may like to call it developed as well as Peru where the infrastructure is spread out thinly. It has succeeded at the pilot level in the villages of India where electricity may be available for a couple hours a day and it works where solar power is usable. As regards employment, would you recruit a high school kid who began learning on screen, using both the Windows and Linux from the first grade or someone who began touching the keyboards after passing out of school? Thanks much Satish Jha On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Taran Rampersad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > That it is more robust certainly is nice. However, the fact that > infrastructure development is robbed by a well marketed feature filled > (narrated below) *product* does not mean that it will solve anything. Odd > that the iPhone was brought up - it has had such good marketing that people > are buying it even in areas where the features don't work. > > If that's not corporate success, I don't know what is. But we're not > talking about corporate success.... or are we? It seems to me that the > mission of education and the closing of the digital divide have different > goals when compared to corporate interests. > > The proof will be in the pudding. I'd like to hear success in any way, but > I am fairly certain that the successes will mainly be seen in areas that... > already have the necessary infrastructure in place. And in the long term, I > have sincere doubts as to whether the OLPC will create employment for people > once they do become computer literate in the context of the OLPC - or > outside of the context. > > Good technology, but I seriously question the use of it. > Satish Jha wrote: > > -- > Satish Jha > President & CEO > OLPC India > One Cambridge Center > Cambridge, MA 02142 > T: 301 841 7422 > F:301560 4909 > www.laptop.org > __________________ > http://www.linkedin.com/myprofile?trk=tab_pro > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satish_Jha > _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@digitaldivide.net http://digitaldivide.net/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
