> Well, I agree with that (to the extent that you realise you're dependent > on the investment of others ;), but again, it doesn't matter how cheap > you can get it unless customers want it, and I think that's the problem > OLPC have bumped into.
I wonder if they had a more conventional looking machine it might have been an easier sale? In the East European market where we are targeted I would much rather try and lease a service at say 6 Euros a month with an Ink media machine than try the same at 4 Euros with a OLPC even though it is a price sensitive market. I think by the time we really get going we could have the price down to 4 Euos anyway. Since we are selling a service we can offer the clients a choice. OLPC (except we can't source them, I tried ;-) ) ASUS EEEPC, Elonex one, InkMedia or a conventional Windows PC laptop - really we don't care about the device except in that it makes our content and qualifications accessible and it is a price sensitive market. I'm guessing somethig low cost, very close to what they are used to seeing with Windows but without viruses etc might well be attractive. > >> and that's basically what has happened to the OLPC project, > >> except that there 'education' supplants software, to seed the kind of > >> self-learning that 8-bit micros did. They've just realised that you > >> don't need free software to do that. > >> > > > > You don't if the software license costs come down to zero or very close > > to it. Free software is likely to be instrumental in making that happen > > though and then as stuff moves to the web the desktop OS will become > > irrelevant anyway. I think that is probably worse for MS than for anyone > > else. > > > > Possibly. I'm not sure; I think that would require a much greater degree > of commoditization than currently exists and is likely to exist in the > next 10-15 years. I don't think price is the issue at this point; you > basically can't give a free desktop away at the moment. I think that is mainly fear about running apps. The more apps get ported to Linux and the more move to the web the more that fear reduces. As fear reduces and confidence grows more people will change and MS will reduce prices. It might take 10-15 years but I'd be surprised if it was that long given the changes in the last 5. Ian -- New QCA Accredited IT Qualifications www.theINGOTs.org You have received this email from the following company: The Learning Machine Limited, Reg Office, 36 Ashby Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire, B79 8AQ. Reg No: 05560797, Registered in England and Wales. _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
