Evil Empires for Reals

Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child initiative is not one I've followed closely enough. Sure, I wrote about twists and turns in the road here and there when I was at BusinessWeek, but usually I've been in a state of, "Oh yeah!....How's that going?" I'm embarrassed to admit this because I firmly believe bridging the digital divide is one of the most humanitarian things we can do-- especially those of us who've had success because of the Web. (Yes, I realize in the grand scheme of the Valley I'm an ant in the "success because of the Web" category, but still, by reporter standards, covering the Web has proved either a lucky or good move so I feel some responsibility to give back.)

So, I was glad to see this cheeky and comprehensive piece in The Sunday Times (the UK one, not my favorite NY daily) and even more glad to see it on TechMeme since I don't make a habit of reading the Sunday Times. It's far too long for an online read, but there's some great stuff around page four on about exactly how Microsoft and Intel tried to "kill" the OLPC initiative. A few excerpts in case your eyes glaze over before that point.

"Microsoft may have used words and a refusal to co-operate as its weapons against the XO; Intel used brute force. The company dominates global computer hardware in the way that Microsoft dominates the software. And, like Microsoft, it is a fierce protector of its ascendancy. So fierce, in fact, that the Federal Trade Commission in the US has recently opened an investigation into its alleged anti-competitive practices designed to shut out AMD. On the academic side of the OLPC project, they were shocked by the ferocity with which Intel attempted to kill their product. On the business side, they just shrugged and they all said the same thing: 'It’s in their DNA.' "

and a bit later:

"Many in the industry says the Classmate was intended to be an XO killer and that’s how Intel behaved. Their formidable global sales operation charged into any market in which OLPC might get a foothold, trashing the XO and pushing the Classmate. Nigeria, where Negroponte had one of his handshake deals with President Obasanjo, was a typical example. In August 2006, Craig Barrett, Intel chairman, wrote a hard-sell letter to Obasanjo asking for a meeting in which he could explain their World Ahead programme, 'which is chartered to extend PC access to the world’s next billion users'. This programme had been launched in May 2006, 15 months after the OLPC announcement at Davos – bit of a dead giveaway there, Craig. Barrett’s letter was backed up by documents listing 'the shortcoming of the OLPC approach.'"

I haven't done my own reporting on this particular case, but based on what I've heard in many a late night, drinking-scotch-around-a-fireplace-session at tech conferences over the years, it indeed sounds like  pretty standard operating procedure for Intel. Only it's typically aimed at would-be-competing startups, not feel good initiatives like OLPC. The reporter, Bryan Appleyard, doesn't stop with the expose. He offers this nice analysis towards the end:

"Destructive as all this sounds, it represents a kind of success for OLPC. First, whatever Intel tries not to say, it is almost certain that the OLPC inspired the Classmate and cheap computers from others. Furthermore, as many on the business side of OLPC pointed out, the very fact that giants like Microsoft and Intel were bothering to trash the XO indicated the power of this idea to get under their skin....

"And, finally, however 'impure' it may be to the open sourcers, putting Windows on the XO was a huge breakthrough in the computing industry because Microsoft has let them have Windows XP for $3 per computer. One of the previous industry certainties was that Microsoft never ever sells anything cheap."

Good point. Please go read the whole piece-- it's long, but worth it. Not only for the reporting but for Appleyard's very British continual skewing of Agnes, the evasive Intel spokeswoman, called "lovely," "earnest" "divine" and "my new best friend" by Appleyard at various points in the narrative. Having dealt with many an uncooperative tech company (cough- Oracle, Google, Yahoo, Apple - cough, cough) part of me loved the utter transparency with which Appleyard depicted Intel's strong-arming "cooperation" with the story. But the other part of me felt bad because it's not really her fault. If Agnes had been truly cooperative Intel likely would have fired her and plucked another one out of an agency to take her place. The real culprit is that Intel DNA Appleyard aptly describes.

Lest we hate them too much: We should all recognize that Microsoft and Intel not only have the benefits of being monopolists, but the burden as well. As publicly traded companies that have to protect legacy businesses they don't really have the luxury to just "do good." In a business sense, AMD had a foothold in the developing world to gain, and since the move has nothing to do with paid search ads, Google had nothing to lose. In that sense, Microsoft and Intel execs are every bit as much of a part of the larger system as "dear Agnes."