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One Laptop Per Child orders surge (Boston.com)
Boston.com looks at the current state of OLPC orders, noting that Peru has just signed up for 260,000 systems. "Robert Fadel, the foundation's director of finance and operations, said both programs are paying off. Since the Give One Get One program began Nov. 12, the foundation has received about $2 million in orders every day, he said. That works out to 190,000 laptops total, with at least half donated to children in developing countries. Fadel said many customers end up donating both the computers they buy."
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One Laptop Per Child orders surge (Boston.com) Posted Dec 2, 2007 10:10 UTC (Sun) by crackmonkey (guest, #31592) [Link] That's disappointing. I'd have hoped that the OLPC organization would have been against the Surge tactics in Iraq. Now they're ordering their own futile maneuver!
One Laptop Per Child orders surge (Boston.com) Posted Dec 2, 2007 18:23 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link] please try to make your political rants at least somewhat relevant to the article you are posting to. this article is saying that the rate of purchases is increasing. this is a good thing and not some 'ploy' or 'tactic' of the olpc team.
One Laptop Per Child orders surge (Boston.com) Posted Dec 3, 2007 15:33 UTC (Mon) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link] I THINK it was meant to be humorous. I hope.
One Laptop Per Child orders surge (Boston.com) Posted Dec 5, 2007 5:57 UTC (Wed) by Thanatopsis (guest, #14019) [Link] I find myself with a lack of words. You have taken a wonderful program to bring knowledge and tools to enable the acquisition of said knowledge and turned it into a political statement. Every child deserves the right to an education. OLPC is a wonderful tool. Education IS the key to understanding the diversity of our cultures. You have an agenda. You IMNSHO are a prat. In conclusion, FOAD.
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 2, 2007 10:53 UTC (Sun) by Velmont (guest, #46433) [Link] ...but it is really damn hard. I live in Norway, so it's not easy-forward. They want me to call a number, but I don't really want to call to the US when we've got this fine thing called the Internet. But it doesn't look like it's possible for us to use paypal - it just keeps coming with bad error messages. Too bad. We've been trying for a long time. Even after they said they'll sell international, as long as you provide an address in the US (we do, via JetCarrier)
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 0:06 UTC (Mon) by lakeland (subscriber, #1157) [Link] Yeah, it's nice to get things sorted out by email but really telephones are quick and easy too :) Email is particularly useful for standard stuff, but international orders tend to be tricky and so I can understand needing to phone through details.
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 15:36 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] GOOD IDEA STOP NOTHING WRONG WITH THE TELEGRAPH EITHER FULLSTOP
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 18:31 UTC (Mon) by jordanb (guest, #45668) [Link] The irony here is that email is much closer to the telegraph than the telephone is.
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 2:13 UTC (Mon) by jamesh (guest, #1159) [Link] I've heard you can make telephone calls over the internet these days. Maybe you could try that.
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 7:29 UTC (Mon) by irios (guest, #19838) [Link] Please, don't be thick, or patronising. It is one thing to express onself in a foreign language by carefully composing your phrases in writing and taking your time to understand what you read, and another TOTALLY different thing is facing oral communication, in real time, over the phone, with a stranger, with a strange accent, and with your credit card information being involved. The 5% of you who has bothered to learn a foreign language will probably agree. You assume that our command of English should be perfect, but you only have to take a peek in many forums to see that is far from the case even from within your own frontiers.
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 8:54 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link] there are translator services available for such things and if you are worries about useing such services with your credit card, remember that you should be equally worried about putting your credit card in e-mail. things will probably improve over time, it wasn't that long ago that they weren't planning to make them available to individuals at all due to the administrative overhead of each sale. they found a way to work around that
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 21:16 UTC (Mon) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] Yeah, I'm sure that international commerce is vastly enhanced by using translator services for every petty transaction. And that because they can't be bothered to put up an electronic form like Amazon has had for, what? ten, twelve years? What on Earth is the administrative overhead for a credit card check nowadays?If the project cannot be bothered to set up an international e-commerce system, and instead performs all transactions by phone (which are really costly!), that spells bad business sense to me. And being a non-profit doesn't excuse them; those kids need that money to be well managed.
It depends... Posted Dec 3, 2007 21:50 UTC (Mon) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link] What on Earth is the administrative overhead for a credit card check nowadays? Depends on the amount of fraud you can tolerate. Amazon is happy with pretty high amount, OLPC is not. Of course there services which will happily handle international requests and will handle associated risks, but they ask for some $$ to mitigate risks (2% for Checkout)...
Not bad Posted Dec 4, 2007 7:04 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link] 2% is better than many brick-and-mortar merchants have to pay (3 to 5% here in Spain, I have heard). On a $400 transaction it would amount to $8. In contrast, 10 minutes on the phone for a $40k-a-year employee can cost you around $4, assuming they are fully occupied all day and have no overhead. When you take hidden costs into account it can mount to about the same $8. Plus, you still have to accept the credit card and associated fees.Maybe OLPC has too much volunteer time on their hands, but probably it is just an interim measure.
Administrative cost of personal OLPC purchase Posted Dec 7, 2007 16:59 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] will happily handle international requests and will handle associated risks, but they ask for some $$ to mitigate risks (2% for Checkout)... Some details:
Trying to buy 6... Posted Dec 3, 2007 2:18 UTC (Mon) by ibukanov (subscriber, #3942) [Link] I can imagine that a credit card processing company in USA may require that for overseas credit cards one has to make a phone call so an extra "verification" can be done. I think in time OLPC Foundation will sort out international orders. It just takes time given IMO a messy state of payment systems in USA.
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