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November 4, 2008

For the past year now, Nicholas Negroponte, founder of the One Laptop per Child Project has talked of selling millions of XOs by the end of this year, and the reported 500,000 XOs produced so far are nothing to cough at either.

But now Asus recently revealed that it has sold a little over 4 million "eee" laptops to date and aims for 5 million by the end of 2008.

Even though Asus's eee PC and XO are often mentioned in the same breath, some would argue that the direct impact of Asus' success on the OLPC project has been relatively limited. Yes, some potential Give 1, Get 1 donors might have decided to opt for an eee PC instead of going the XO route. But when it comes to OLPC's core market - education in developing nations - I haven't seen too many reports of countries or organizations choosing Asus' laptop over OLPC's lean-green-machine for pilots and deployments.

However things are changing as it's now being reported that Asus will introduce a $200 eee PC in 2009. Some still believe that the XO is superior to any competing laptop when it comes to addressing the challenges that computers have to endure in childrens' hands in places such as Peru, Nepal and Rwanda.

XOs are priced between $188 and $204 and are still considered cheaper compared to the entry-level eee PCs from about $300 and on.

Also, $100 of price difference might not matter to some but it does make quite a difference when purchasing ten-thousands of units. Despite numerous recent reports and discussions about the overall TCO (total cost of ownership) of computers in schools, some still believe that the unit-cost is still quite an important psychological factor.

With OLPC and Asus being on a level playing field when it comes to the price of their laptops, the direct competition between them is bound to increase.

Some say that many governments and organizations will now be taking a closer look at Asus' products before making any final purchasing decisions.

With Asus' broad product lineup - compared to the XO's one size fits all - the Taiwanese company could be making significant inroads into OLPC's market. Asus has adjusted its mid-range and entry-level "eee" laptop pricing and market position, and expects to launch an eee PC priced at US $200 early next year.

Noting that OLPC is all about education and not laptops some observers can debate whether this really matters or not... But this development certainly demonstrates that Asus is quickly catching up to OLPC with regard to the technology and its simplicity.

This happens due to an impressive rate of innovation and product refinement. The XO hasn't changed since production started a year ago and contrary to earlier promises its price hasn't gone down so far. The eee PC lineup on the other hand is seeing rapid development on several fronts and now the promise of a lower entry-price for 2009.

Some might point to the XO-2 as an example of amazing innovation, however by the time it actually becomes available Asus is also very likely to offer touch-screen eee PCs as well. And THAT is when the landscape for the OLPC Project will change considerably, for the worse that is.

Simply put, it seems that Asus is on a good path to finishing what OLPC orginally started: designing innovative and highly functional computers, sold at an amazingly low-cost and to everyone that need it.

Source: Asus.

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