RSSOLPC eliminates half of staff, cuts salaries of rest
By Tim Conneally | Published January 7, 2009, 7:42 PM
This afternoon, the One Laptop per Child project announced cutbacks that CEO Nicholas Negroponte called "unavoidable."
The nonprofit project that envisioned the $100 laptop that could be used in even the most remote settings has changed its vision to the $0 laptop, and as such has to eliminate roughly half of its workforce.
While not a huge organization to begin with, the One Laptop Per Child project will be comprised of now only 32 people, all of whom are taking voluntary salary reductions to help streamline the project as it changes its mission for providing computers to developing nations.
OLPC deployments in Latin America will also be spun off into a separate support unit, while the project commits a stronger focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Afghanistan, and northwest Pakistan. The group's new initiatives include the development of a second-gen XO laptop, a free connectivity program, a million digital books, and the transferal of Sugar OS development onto the community.
"While we are saddened by this development," said Negroponte, "We remain firmly committed to our mission of getting laptops to children in developing countries. We thank team members who are departing for their contributions to this important mission."
The group has not yet released sales figures for its "Give one, Get one" program for the 2008 holiday season, that included distribution by online retailer Amazon.com.
This will continue to occur, as in many established and emerging markets, thin client desktops such as NComputing and Pano Logic, just to name 2 of MANY, offer a much greater ROI and MUCH lower admin overhead.
Just as Intel was 'surprised' by its losing out to NComputing in India!
And for corporations and schools where security as well as admin time/costs as well as software costs are an issue, it makes much more sense to run VERY capable (NOT your fathers VT100!!!)secure thin clients hung off of multiple virtual servers hosted on ONE server.
Just look where VMWare, Citrix, MS virtual environment, Prallels and so many others are doing. THERE is the real growth opportunity! Not simply in tryin to expand the OLD model of one mechanical device in the hands of everyone that FAILS to address software. security, maintenance, admin, etc. costs and overhead!
An admirable goal eclipsed by advancing technological models with much greater ROI.
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I wouldn't mind to volunteer my time to help out, if only they were closer.
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Thin Client and Virtual Server infrastructure not-withstanding, right now we need more organizations like OLPC who are proactively putting hardware in the hands of kids around the globe.
Centralized models like Citrix, VMware, IBM terminals etc are great, and much more hardware efficient. But OLPCs model will work with or without that centralization. These laptops can work where there is no internet, and limited or no access to electricity. I love VMware, but even 'virtual' servers need electricity.
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