This little item came in via our competitive intelligence memo this morning. Appears that Beastmaster Bill is going to use his philanthropical foundation to buy up as many of those hundred-dollar craptops as they can. They're gonnna offer Third World kids cold hard cash, or food, or vaccines and other medications, in barter for the machines. Program is gonna be called, "Be a Hero, Feed Your Family." Our guys have already seen mockups of the ads, which are tailored to each country. Gist is the same. Picture of kid beaming with pride and holding his OLPC machine. Message goes like this, "Hello, Abdul. Isn't it wonderful to have such a shiny new toy? How happy you must be! Yet how sad your Mama is that she cannot buy food for your family. Or that your sister needs medicine but your family cannot afford to buy it. Well, now you can be a hero! The 'Be a Hero' program will offer you valuable goods in exchange for your wonderful toy. As much as one hundred dollars, Abdul! Think! That is more than your Papa earned all last year! Fortune has smiled upon you and granted you this valuable object. Now you can use it to save your family. Won't you feel proud?"
You get the idea. Negroponte is flipping the hell out. Says it's a transparent scheme to wipe these machines out of the market and kill Linux. Bill's people say it's just an exercise in free market economics. Man oh man. This is a real fiasco in the making.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Gates Foundation will buy $100 craptops in the aftermarket
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8 comments:
Maybe Bill will offer them Magic Beans.
"Beastmaster"? Isn't that the jungle guy that talks to animals for a living? Same guy you say?
I could even see Bill pulling this off with a positive media spin for real. Something along the lines of:
Bill Gates, the greatest philanthropist of all time, today offered $100 each to millions of school children in many of the world's poorest countries.
This is, he says, a response to the "frivolous" gifts of "clockwork toy computers" being shipped by a consortium of anti-Microsoft organisations. According to Mr. Gates, who has had an even greater effect on the third world in recent years than Jesus Christ, the "stupid contraptions" are a mere ruse to force Linux anti-DRM onto future generations, which may increase terrorism as well as add significantly to global warming.
The millions of machines Gates is stepping in to buy from the children's innocent hands are apparently equipped with what are known in the industry as "developer tools" which are the main source of computer viruses, spyware and hepititis worldwide according to leading analysts.
Before Gates' generous move, Washington insiders say, approaches were made by top silicon valley figures to the FBI, attempting to freeze assets of the consortium and prevent their plans from going ahead. The FBI turned them down, we have learned from leading sources, because of a failure in their "Blackberry" based intelligence gathering infrastructure. Fortunately Gates was able to act and save us all from fiery doom.
Looks like Mr Bill also acquired Britney's hair at the million-dollar auction and had it all transplanted on his top.
This is cute:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=qHO8l-Bd1O4
Steve, I read that you and Bill were going to be doing a session with Walt Mossberg at his lame conference. Give us some insight as to how you plan to humiliate Mr. Micro...
This one has to be black propaganda--or someone's idea of a joke. Gates may be bad but he's not mad: the publicity consequent on pulling a stunt like that would damage Microsoft so badly that it simply wouldn't be worth it.
P.S. Beastmaster? Is Redmond collectively the beast? Or is it sweaty Steve Ballmer of "Dance Monkey Boy" fame that's the beast?
Yeahhhh... he's going after OLPC, which most people in developing countries know is a PR stunt to begin with.
Because the Internet is so much more important than months worth of food.
Right.
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