[Sugar-devel] The future of Sugar on XO-1s

[Tony Anderson]

Of course, the question is what is our market? I think Sugar has no 
chance to impact the American education market. Chris Doerndorfer 
presented that point very effectively at the Malaysia summit noting that 
major requests for proposals by UNESCO, USAID, and others eliminated 
proposals of Sugar or XOs on technical grounds (e.g. proposal from 
non-qualifying origanization, insufficient capital to make escrow 
requirements and so on). Rabi Karmacharya noted that OLE Nepal could not 
qualify to bid on Nepal's request.

Many schools in the US are adopting a BYD policy. I suspect that an XO 
with Sugar would not qualify as an acceptable device. Obviously, such a 
policy is impossible for community schools in the developing world.

I believe our opportunity is to convince private philanthropic 
individuals and organizations to support specific deployments in 
specific countries. To do this
we need a reliable source of hardware, a credible support organization 
(e.g. Red Hat, Moodle, ...), a proven track record of success in similar 
situations, as well as open software and content. This needs to be 
combined into a solid story to present to potential sponsors.

I don't think it matters whether we have large numbers of computers 
running Sugar in the US or US private schools. We should, of course, 
have an ability to demonstrate to sponsors what we are offering.

So a G1G1 needs to be positioned as primarily benefiting the Give side. 
Making half of the package deductible is helpful. Offering a Give2 
option at full deductbility may work. Describing in detail, how the 
Give1 or 2 laptops would be used is essential (a point ignored by OLPC).

In the second G1G1, OLPC was introduced to basic business management. 
The manufacturer, not unreasonably. required payment for the laptops on 
delivery (to Amazon). The made all of the available funds illiquid and 
so OLPC was forced to riff many very valuable developers.

Apparently no one at OLPC was familiar with inventory loans or managing 
cash flow.

Crowd-sourcing makes clear that many Americans will put up cash for what 
they consider a worthy cause. This might be a way to mange a G1G1 or G2 
program. Any such program must pay serious attention to financing. For 
example, suppose the minimum build order is $2M. While those 10000 
laptops are in inventory, they tie up the funds. When all of the laptops 
have been paid for and deployed, a new order can be placed. Better would 
be to order 20,000 units at $4M. Then when 10,000 have been deployed and 
paid for, a new order can be placed. However, this means at least $2M 
will be tied up in inventory.

Tony


On 04/09/2016 10:12 PM, Sean DALY wrote:
>
> On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 5:57 AM, Dave Crossland <dave at lab6.com 
> <mailto:dave at lab6.com>> wrote:
>
>     Finding ten ritzy private primary schools in the US where the
>     parents can drop $400 in a hat shouldn't be too hard for a savvy
>     sales person
>
>
> I'd like to think that's so, but it may well be more likely that 
> parents would be more impressed with a tablet-based solution, or with 
> spending that money on home equipment.
>
> Private schools definitely have more resources and more leeway in IT 
> buying, but they also need to fit IT activity into a curriculum.
>
> It's possible a charity/social responsibility oriented approach could 
> work, but it's also possible that a school's IT buyer would find XOs a 
> tough sell compared to, say the Dell Latitude 13 education offer. And 
> no need to pay the salesperson so well - we would need to hire (lots 
> of) staff for the sales logistics at the same time.
>
> Models exist where a nonprofit org or foundation controls a business 
> (e.g. Mozilla), which might be necessary in this scenario. However 
> OLPC (and by extension Sugar in its ecosystem) happens to have an 
> awful image problem. What would be the value proposition of our offer 
> over the commercial offers, for large scale buyers to take the risk? 
> The charity/solidarity aspect? Wouldn't OLPC rather want to manage 
> such a project?
>
> I encourage big-picture thinking, perhaps more brainstorming is in order
>
> Sean
>

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