Apple, Google and the $100 laptop

Posted by Dennis Sellers Oct 7, 2005 at 8:05am

Neo is ‘Macsimum News’ man of mystery. If we told you more, we’d have to kill you.

The San Francisco based TechConnect Project was a completely unknown initiative to most of us until last Friday—when the news broke that Google was throwing their hat into the ring with a last minute proposal.

Google announced its bit on this city initiative with services that would be “open” in addition to proposing wholesaling wireless bandwidth to third parties interested in selling premium services. This report covers the TechConnect project in light of Google’s entry into this race, and some very interesting developments that could very well usher in the era of the network computer.

The TechConnect Project

The City of San Francisco’s own TechConnect Web page reveals Mayor Gavin Newsom’s overview of this initiative as follows: “TechConnect is a new City-wide initiative for universal, affordable, wireless broadband access. Following the model of “Project Connect,” TechConnect will connect all San Franciscans to the social, educational, informational and economic opportunities they need to succeed in the increasingly competitive local, national and international economies of the 21st Century. TechConnect will make it possible for every San Franciscan to take advantage of this century’s digital opportunities by connecting people with broadband access at home and work and promoting access to affordable computer hardware, training, and on-line content.

Marking a significant change from hotspots or hot zones, where WiFi access is available in proscribed areas, San Francisco’s initiative seeks ubiquitous connectivity anywhere, anytime—an especially difficult challenge in a city renowned for its hilly topography. In addition to the seamless connectivity, the San Francisco WiFi initiative seeks to provide portable connectivity via handheld, PDA or cell phone, as well as mobile or nomadic connectivity— at an affordable cost for all residents, including low income San Franciscans.”

The mayor’s press release, dated Aug. 16, 2005, began a 45-day public process that invited all interested parties from the public, private and non-profit sectors to offer their ideas for how San Francisco could provide a universal, affordable wireless broadband network.

The city received 26 proposals from a wide range of companies, including Internet service provider EarthLink, which was just awarded the contract for the Philadelphia Wireless Project, San Francisco wireless upstart Feeva and cell phone company Cingular. Other notable companies who submitted proposals included Ericsson, Motorola, Nortel, SeaKay/Cisco, Symbol Technologies, SkyTel, Extreme Networks, GigaBeam and Metro-Fi. But it’s Google’s bid that most will be keeping an eye on because of recent developments that I’ll address further on.

A TechConnect fact sheet revealed a recent study showing that California households with an annual income of more than $75,000 are six times more likely to have broadband connectivity than households with annual incomes of less than $15,000. With that statistic in mind, the City of San Francisco is seeking a partnership with the private sector that could deliver broadband services to lower income households in the $10/mo range, which was the goal of the Philadelphia Wireless project as stated by Dianah Neff, Philadelphia’s CIO. Yet affordable access to the internet is only half of the equation.

The Hundred Dollar Laptop

San Francisco’s TechConnect Project is of course just one of many start-up or ongoing projects such as the Computer Clubhouse, that are attempting to address the long standing issue known as the Digital Divide. In an attempt to address this issue beyond providing affordable access to the internet, one of the key objectives of the TechConnect project is noted as being the promotion of affordable computer hardware. This is where MIT Media Labs, co-founder of the Computer Clubhouse, comes into the picture with a recently outlined design for a sub-$100 PC.

One of the first to jump on MIT’s bandwagon for the hundred dollar laptop was Massachusetts own Governor Mitt Romney, with a plan to issue the laptops to the state’s schoolchildren. After meeting in July with Media Lab officials, Romney concluded that the lower price tag of their proposed computer could enable the state to roll out the program more quickly. As part of an education reform plan, Romney proposed to spend $54 million to buy one of Negroponte’s laptops for every student. The first three grades would get computers during fiscal year 2007, while students in the other three grades would get them the following year.

It would stand to reason that other projects such as TechConnect and Philadelphia Wireless will be considering the implementation of the MIT laptop as well. This is the only way that these municipalities could ever meet the needs of students whose family’s incomes are at poverty levels. But realistically, what kind of computer hardware could you possibly get for a lousy hundred bucks? You’d be surprised.

Details of the laptop

What these proposed PC’s will provide for the buck is truly amazing.

The Linux-based machines are expected to have a 500MHz processor, with flash memory instead of a hard drive which has more delicate moving parts. They will have four USB ports, and will be able to connect to the net through Wi-Fi – wireless net technology in addition to being cell phone-enabled – for sharing data easily.

It will also have a dual-mode display so that it can still be used in varying light conditions outside. It will be a colour display, but users will be able to switch easily to monochrome mode so that it can be viewed in bright sunlight, at four times normal resolution.
The Boston Globe adds that the laptop will include ‘’mesh networking” technology that lets each laptop communicate automatically with any other machine in range. If just one laptop has direct access to the Net, others can easily connect to it and share a single online connection.

The first prototype of this laptop is to be unveiled during this year’s World Summit on the Information Society on November 17 2005. According to Negroponte’s non-profit association, up to 15 million units will be in production within a year.

Noteworthy is the little fact that while the PC press has generally coined this as the “laptop PC,” the fact is that the association responsible for the unit does not. The acronym PC is nowhere to be found in their FAQ. The fact is that Google, which is bidding on the TechConnect Project, is also a founding contributor of thin-client applications for the MIT laptop project. Simply put – the laptop if anything would be considered a network computer or NC.

Is Google eyeing the education market?

The State of Massachusetts decision to issue the MIT laptops to the states schoolchildren as part of their education reform plan beginning in fiscal years 2007-2008, has to be raising a few eyebrows around the tech industry these days. In the blink-of-an-eye, what seemingly began as a humble laptop initiative for third world countries, could very well sweep America in the coming years.

Clearly Google’s connection to the MIT Laptop initiative combined with their recently announced alliance with Sun, will translate into mass distribution of OpenOffice into the enterprise in addition to the education market – plain and simple. It may not happen overnight and in fact nothing was officially announced during the Sun event this week. However, one of the comments that Jonathan Schwartz made during the Sun/Google alliance event was interesting, in that he alluded to wanting to retain “an element of surprise” in respect to future product announcements and/or collaborative efforts between Sun and Google on OpenOffice. Translation: Count on this being big news – in time.

Also in context, is the fact that the latest version of the state of Massachusetts technical reference guidelines state that the OpenDocument format would now become the default format for text, spreadsheets, charts, and graphical documents enabling fully access to future versions of this open source product OpenOffice. As expected, Microsoft lashed out against the Massachusetts decision. As if that news surprises anyone.

Timing is everything in this business, so keep in mind that MIT’s own laptop distribution estimates are presently between 150-200 million units over the next several years, beginning with an estimated 15 million units rolling into the market in 2006. Expect the timing of any such “surprise” from Sun and Google to be tied to this initiative’s ramp-up in 2007.

Jonathan Schwartz, President and COO of Sun Microsystems, recently stated in a keynote that “The majority of the applications that will drive the next wave of innovation will be services, not applications that run on the desktop.” So whatever initiatives that the Sun/Google alliance may dream up for the educational system in the future, will definitely take on the form of web services.

Did Jonathan’s quote happen to sound familiar to you? Well it should have – because it echoes Steve Jobs stating – “We believe that the next wave of the Internet will be client applications that work intimately with the Internet, but not necessarily with a Web browser,” back in 2001. Steve Jobs emphasis on “not necessarily with a Web Browser,” can now be appreciated in the market as being Apple’s iTunes Music Store.

Is Apple ready for the NC era?

Apple’s involvement with Oracle’s original 1997 NC prototype made by NEC, ran on Apple’s Rhapsody OS—which is now considered to be Darwin. I emphasize Darwin and not OS X because at the time of the announcement, Rhapsody was able to run on Intel and ARM processors and run Windows applications. There was no connection to the PowerPC processor whatsoever.

At that time, the NC project revolved around Oracle’s Universal Server. Today that server is called Oracle’s Darwin server that just happens to be powering Oracle’s Think.com initiative aimed at the educational market. Think.com runs on UNIX (Solaris and HP-UX) that ties directly back to OpenStep and WebObjects from NeXT. In hindsight, we could see that Apple’s “Think Different TV ad ending with the face of a child wasn’t incidental.

Oracle’s Think.com introduced the ability to create tab based websites for students before they were popular in the general market. The object oriented nature of the program has Apple’s influence written all over it. As always, the Think.com program runs on Intel processors. So it’ll be interesting to see what transpires between Oracle and Apple on this front, once Apple’s transition to the Intel processor is completed. Their history of working together on an NC in 1997 could very well translate into a product launch in and around 2007.

But a notebook isn’t the only form factor that an NC could take of course. In fact consider Apple’s iPod as being one such candidate. This illustrated unit, dubbed the PC Core, came from the labs of IBM/Japan (see page 12 of IBM’s PDF titled “On-demand design service innovations”). The PC Core’s intended market targets were in fact listed as being large environments like the enterprise or universities. The PC Core was in fact an NC prototype.

Far from being a lab prototype, Apple already has real world iPod programs in Universities like Duke today. And considering that the iPod already allows for downloading files to its hard/flash drive, evolving the iPod to eventually take on full NC functionality is not a stretch.

What would distinguish an Apple based NC from the competition is their supporting system software such as PowerSchool (PDF). If you’re not familiar with the PowerSchool program, you could also take this QuickTime tour.

PowerSchool is a Web-based student information system (SIS) that simplifies data-driven decision making by providing real-time information to all stakeholders — over the Internet. Administrators get the most accurate information to make more effective decisions. Teachers would gain timesaving administrative tools, parents gain immediate access to their children’s grades and students can track their own progress.

That just happens to be in sync with the type of program that Dianah Neff, CIO of the Philadelphia Wireless project envisioned when she stated that “Our schools have been working diligently to wire, or unwire, their campuses. But they need to reach into the home so families can communicate with teachers and administrators, access homework assignments and grades.”

The bottom line is that the education market has always been and will always be a very important market for Apple. If Apple could deliver solid solutions like PowerSchool or Supercomputers like those used at Virginia Tech, I don’t think an NC is really going to be a challenge for Apple in the future. It’s just a matter of market timing.

The reality of the $100 laptop

In the end, MIT’s $100 laptop is an amazing development that many in the industry will be keeping an eye on going forward. It’s likely to be one of the great stories of 2005 when it’s unveiled in Tunisia this November. MIT and Negroponte should be applauded by all for this breakthrough development and the true focus of their initiative: children in under developed countries.

San Francisco’s TechConnect project focuses on households whose annual income is less than $15,000 per annum, which is the likely target audience for the MIT laptop to begin with, generally speaking. Realistically, the MIT laptop will simply bring opportunity for millions upon millions of people around the world who up until now have been shut out of the internet revolution. It’s about filling the gap in the digital divide – and nothing more. In addition, Google’s proposal not only describes delivering open services – but premium services as well.

And let’s not forget that buried in Mayor Newsom’s TechConnect project is this little bit of reality: “San Francisco is exploring ways to provide ubiquitous high-speed wireless service in order to create an attractive city for innovative people and businesses, as well as helping economically disadvantaged residents get online,” Newsom said.

The real priority behind most of these municipal or State initiatives is about economic gain and attracting new businesses to their respective municipalities or states – first and foremost. Helping the economically disadvantaged is in fact at the bottom of their priorities. But these politicians sure know how to pull the media’s strings don’t they. Play the violin and mention disadvantaged citizens and the press will eat it up in a heart beat. Sad but true. Let’s hope that these politicians deliver what they promise—and do what’s right.

But one thing is for certain. News of the MIT NC laptop has certainly rung the first bell in bringing about the next wave of the Internet: the era of the NC. By 2007-2008, it will likely be common place to have OEM’s subsidizing NC hardware in exchange for buying into premium web service contracts, much like it is today for cell phones. We’re in store for Interesting times ahead – indeed.

neo@macsimumnews.com

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