Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
Public Council Teleconference: Application Rationalization — Hidden Costs and Smart Decisions
November 17 at 11:00 am US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Honorio Padrón, of The Hackett Group, who will share the drivers for companies to tackle application rationalization and the results of research that define the hidden cost of complexity. Additionally, we will discuss key decision milestones—to start or not, holding the course steady and fulfilling expectations.
Virtual Desktop Cost-Benefit Analysis — Michael Jacobs, Catlin Group
The analysis contained in this presentation measures the cost of everything from the machines and licenses to the infrastructure for virtual vs. traditional desktop environments.
Honor your best senior team members - Apply for the CIO Ones to Watch Award
Get well-earned public recognition for your top up-and-coming team members, your IT organization and your enterprise. Award winners will be announced, publicized and feted in May 2010, great timing to help attract new IT recruits to your company.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »September 05, 2008 — IDG News Service —
The One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) association is changing strategy: It has joined forces with the United Nations' lead agency for information technology to further spread its green low-cost laptops to school kids in developing nations around the world.
The partnership shows OLPC is diverging from its original strategy of working directly with governments in order to push its mission forward. OLPC started out as a non-profit focused on creating a US$100 laptop PC to distribute to kids in developing nations to keep them from falling behind the information technology revolution.
The original idea was for governments to order OLPC's XO laptops by the millions, thereby driving down the cost per unit through volume discounts on parts and assembly.
It hasn't worked out quite as hoped.
The laptop is twice as expensive as originally planned, and it turns out, many countries want to order a limited number of them to run trials first. Other nations find them far too expensive no matter what the price.
The result is that despite early hopes for the distribution of millions of XO laptops to school children everywhere, there are only about 400,000 or 500,000 in use today.
"In the final analysis, even US$200 per laptop, which is hugely inexpensive for the technology you get, is just too much," said Matt Keller, OLPC's director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Enter the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), a UN agency with the ambitious global goal of connecting everyone to information technology and communications by the year 2015.
OLPC and the ITU plan to combine efforts to spread XO laptops to kids around the world, including promotional efforts, sharing contacts in government, industry, non-governmental organizations and others, and even finding ways to raise funds to drive down the cost of the laptops to zero for the poorest countries in the world.
"Our mission is to spread information and communication technology (ICT) around the world. For the least developed parts of the world, the missing link is now available: affordable laptops," said Sami Al Basheer, director of the ITU's Telecommunication Development Bureau.
"The most important element of this mission is education," he added.
There are a number of countries around the world suffering from a lack of funds for such devices.
In Afghanistan, for example, a country left with little infrastructure after 35 years of nearly constant warfare, first with the Soviet Union and then civil war, the idea of using technology such as the XO laptop is a stretch.