The idea of getting an inexpensive laptop into the hands of all the poor people of the world is a good one. By itself, there’s no reason to not like the idea, and the opportunities it would open up for people. In the real world, however, the project has been put off, delayed, changed, and so on.

At this point, I think it’s pretty safe to say that the OLPC XO is dead. How could such a promising idea turn into such a huge failure?

1. It took too long to get into people’s hands.

2. When it did get into people’s hands, it wasn’t at the $100 price point that was originally hyped.

3. Nick Negroponte and his people believed the open-source zealots and went with an open-source operating system that’s just a joke beyond all comprehension of the term. It’s non-standard, and provides no real analog to the Mac / Linux (with a desktop manager) / Windows metaphor that the rest of the world is used to. In a nutshell, it provides a nice introduction to computers for people that don’t have one, but provides no real world marketable skills to the people using it.

Unfortunately for the OLPC group, they realized this too late because Intel and Microsoft partnered up on the Classmate PC, and that will be the final death knell for the OLPC. While the OLPC group seems to be leaning toward maybe opening up to other operating systems other than it’s silly included OS, Intel is already out making deals and while I don’t relish the idea of kids only learning Windows, it is a Windows world in which we live, like it or not.

The OLPC failed because the Cory Doctorows of the world got to Negroponte, plain and simple.

When it finally goes away, no one is going to miss it.