<div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">My response follows in italic bolds below.</span></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes">Thanks, Satish Jha</span></font></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>"Any organization willing to support G1G1 in India must commit to have 100,000 XOs in inventory for sales as requested by the G1G1 buyer. The other 100,000</font></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">will be distributed to needy children in regions selected by OLPC India."</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">That is for the organizations, corporate etc. Individuals may be able to order as last year in any quantity starting with one. However to create the capacity to distribute laptops at any place, 100,000 is the minimal size level for it to be viable. So, in case a business is interested in supporting OLPC with G1g1 program, it will need to create an inventory of 100,000 XOs before taking that route.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">If you happen to have done your homework correctly you would notice, there has been plenty of debate on it in the past. Forget an organization, no country has "ordered and received" as many XOs, not even close to it. A few countries pulled out of the OLPC pilots and moved to Intel Classmates or other low-cost laptops for the very same purpose. </font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Not true. Peru and Uruguay have broken the 100,000 and a million XO ceiling respectively. Intel's Classmate is a PC and its not gone for any largescale implementation anywhere. That said, its easier to order a PC that has no requirement of meeting the principles of distribution that XO adopts. Still, insofar as we know, the distribution of Classmate has not exceeded that of XO which is poised to ship about 1 million XOs in the first year of its production.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Then again, as Professor Nicholas Negroponte would say, Classmates is akin to McDonalds where OLPC XO is like the World Food Program.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Have you got the stats on how far behind OLPC is on pending shipments or if they've even figured out how to replace broken hardware, or are they even thinking of tagging XO's anywhere close to the 100 USD figure sometime in the recent future, which to me sounds awfully far-fetched right now. </font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">As far as I know, as of last week, none. We have greater capacity to produce that we have been able to distribute. Please let me know the broken hardware and we will find your answers.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">As regards $100 laptop, if you keep adding features, the cost will likely go up. If we turn XO like any other laptop, just relax the conditions of a screen that can work under the sun and robustness against being dropped (the kind of casing it comes with) and adjust for the dollar depreciation and the scale of production, its pretty much a $100 laptop. But its conceptualiser does not want to compromise on those features that few laptops have.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">That said if you just think that it comes with XP and Office included that will cost about $500 in the market place, its like being given MS Office and a laptop and another $300 to use it. From that point of view it looks like a no-brainer.. and I hope we understand that.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Well, if it's all about the education, then I firmly believe no number should not be small enough for a pilot. They'd missed their mark on this before and various other manufactures seemed to have taken a good advantage off it, and now you seem to be following suit. Would suggest you re-think your strategies on that collaboration part.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Any number must be viable. If you do the math, just to put up one global trainer at a school in a village may cost almost as much as the monthly gross income of all villagers.. That's precisely we need scale. We must also meet the criteria of <span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>every child in a village and a school. </font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">If XO was a business proposition and we sold a laptop, it will beat any competition hands down. It's the five principles of XO that make it different from a simple product that is being sold off the shelf. And there is some merit to both approaches. But XO is nothing if not an educational project.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Would it be possible to have a broader picture of how things that have been planned, right from selection of schools.. to deployments, monitoring of usage & progress reporting, networking and scalability. </font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">There is NO selection of schools as such. It depends on the sponsor where they want to go and then again it also depends on OLPC's willingness to accept that suggestion on the grounds of five principles and logistics. On all other technical aspects there is regular update provided globally, generally through the listservs and sometimes through the media.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Does OLPC India, plan to raise funds for all deployments from just corporate houses, or is it willing to look for alternative sources from donors such as ITU/WFP/Unicef/Read Canada, Save the Children/ World Bank/ IT societies and foreign embassies and the likes.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">OLPC India will tap every possible resource that can sponsor deployment of XOs according to the five principles. Just that several institutions pointed out above are not donor organizations. </font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">How is the Govt planning to be involved, both the central and state entities. </font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">We have to make a case to the government, state by state and at the center to consider the benefits of OLPC's XO for making India of tomorrow a nation of people<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>skilled with contemporary knowledge and tools. How they plan is entirely up to them and how we may be able to case will significantly influence how far we go.</font></i></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">Since the XO is rather looked as an enabler for better education, are you also looking to tap into resources such as NCERT/CBSE for educational material or online libraries? I believe there are quite a few organizations like E-shiksha and others, that are already working on FOSS education material, are they planned to be packaged with the XO's. </font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">We are in touch with or planning to be connected with nearly every organization that is engaged in primary and middle school education.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><font face="Times New Roman">How do you plan on customization and localization from state to state? Do you also plan to have an integrated large scale network for sharing of resources and material.</font></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Times New Roman">Localization is the responsibility of local partners and sponsors. We surely are moving towards coordination the expanding network.</font></i></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Times New Roman"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That said, I would also urge that we should look at all issues from a positive perspective. Any negativity does contributes little to progress.</font></b></p>