A lot of people said that this wouldn’t be possible. Well, it turns out they were wrong. If I had to guess, even at this steep discount, this price for the old netbook must include the “usual profits”, or the reseller wouldn’t bother selling. So, it’s very possible that someone producing this at cost (i.e. substantial amount of labor by volunteers so the “usual profits” is smaller than usual) could have sold it even cheaper.

Of course, this was possible only because of the wild popularity and wide spread of the Eee PC. They didn’t sell this 7-inch model at $100 originally, and given the risks involved, I don’t think they could have. In this way, Negroponte was seriously wrong: by refusing to sell to the general market, his OLPC project lost momentum (as shown by the dismal failure of last year’s G1G1 program) and couldn’t put a $100 laptop out there before the “greedy capitalists” beat him to it.

Negroponte should have started out by marketing the XO laptop in the U.S. and Europe (I believe a lot of people would’ve bought it even at $200 or $300, if they weren’t forced to make a substantial donation in the form of G1G1) and use the proceeds to aggressively pursue R&D of future generations of XO, as well as lowering costs. At the moment, XO is at least 2 years behind in development compared to other netbooks, and with the “greedy capitalists” in the way, I don’t think the “philanthropist” has any chance: capitalism and market economy is the most efficient means of producing goods, after all.