Negroponte Seeks a Laptop CEO

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After the spat, Negroponte says the OLPC lost its "Mother Teresa status" and was picked at by critics for falling far short of its founder's original goals.

Intel's $230 Classmate PC and inexpensive laptops from other companies have been winning converts in some of the developing countries OLPC has been targeting. Intel has pilots running in 30 countries, and has a large staff working with countries to integrate computers into their classrooms. "We're not going to heroic efforts to make it work in very isolated spots. We're trying to make something that's sustainable and relevant," says Tony Salvador, director of strategic planning for Intel's emerging markets group.

One of the leaders in the low-cost PC realm is NComputing of Redwood City, Calif. It sells computer terminals and software that allow up to 10 students to tap into a single PC, at a cost of about $110 per student. It has sold 600,000 machines already, mostly for education. Its CEO, Stephen Dukker, is harshly critical of Negroponte: "He trivializes the difficulty of installing and supporting computers, so he's misrepresenting the true cost of the device."

OLPC acknowledges that there are expenses beyond the cost of its computers. But it says help is available to schools and students for free from open-source volunteers, and from a company, Brightstar, that deploys the computers.

OLPC has come up with a handful of new ideas for hastening adoption of its laptop. After seeing success with its Give One, Get One program last fall, where individuals bought two XOs and donated one to a poor child, the organization now is lining up countries and cities in the developed world to buy laptops and donate a like number to poor countries and cities. It's also launching an effort to help integrate the XO with countries' educational programs.

The Ideal Candidate

The search for a CEO began last year, but the intensity ratcheted up in recent weeks. "I am not a CEO," says Negroponte. "Management, administration, and details are my weaknesses. I'm much better at the vision, big-picture side of the house." The difficulty in finding the right person is that most of the candidates come from the PC industry, but Negroponte is looking for somebody with the leadership profile similart to that of Kofi Annan, the former secretary-general of the UN, who would "view the world as a mission, not a market." The search is being handled by the headhunting firm Spencer Stuart, and Negroponte hopes to have it concluded by April or May. He is on leave from his post at the MIT Media Lab and has not collected a salary from OLPC.

While Negroponte has been the target of some harsh criticism, most observers credit him for waking up the world to a potential solution to educational deficiencies in poor countries. Muhammad Yunus, co-founder of micro-lending pioneer Grameen Bank, believes that gradually more countries will buy XO computers—or inexpensive computers made by other companies. Says Yunus: "Nicholas has ignited a completely new situation, so the world should be grateful to him."

Hamm is a senior writer for BusinessWeek in New York and author of the Globespotting blog.