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$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)Posted Feb 3, 2006 7:27 UTC (Fri) by LetterRip (guest, #6816)Parent article: $100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet)
The laptops are primarily viewed as textbook replacement. Apparently textbook costs are 20$ per child per year in some developing countries. However for the OLPC the 100$ only covers the costs of the laptop, whereas the 20$ per year covers the cost of the book and the content (It is possible that open text books will be developed for usage on the OLPCs). Of course paper and writing utinsels can also be largely replaced by the laptop for written assignments (it has a pen for character input).
LetterRip
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$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet) Posted Feb 3, 2006 17:44 UTC (Fri) by dw (subscriber, #12017) [Link] While in Cambodia recently, I was quite frequently offered 500-page near-replica tourism book photocopies for just $1-$2 US (in fact, I have a whole bookshelf full of them at home now :). In a country like this, I find it difficult to believe that cash-strapped schools are really going to be spending as much as $20 on each student. In Phnom Penh, a packet of cigarettes can cost just 1000 riel, but paying in dollar instantly bumps the price to 10,000 riel. The amputees selling the photocopies were obviously making some profit on their photocopies too. Just to emphase the use of apparently in the parent comment. :)
$100 Laptop: Great for the world, great for Linux (ZDNet) Posted Feb 3, 2006 23:58 UTC (Fri) by LetterRip (guest, #6816) [Link] Just looked up photocopy costs in Cambodia,
[QUOTE]A4 photo copy 80r/page, binding 1000r[/QUOTE]
500*80r+1,000r = 41,000r
[QUOTE]4098r per dollar[/QUOTE] for 2005
that comes to 10 dollars or so for your five hundered page book (assuming black and white printing) to have a commercial photocopier do it. Of course using a commercial printer and large runs would drop the price quite a bit but photocopy stock is a lot lower quality paper than a book printer stock. Of course that completely ignores distribution costs, which are a major cost factor in countries without good distribution infrastructure.
Your orphans also probably demand a much smaller profit margin and have much lower overhead and operating costs than a commercial publisher.
LetterRip
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