OLPC will sit better with a lot of parents (Score 1)

I know one parent who eventually decided not to put his son in private school at the 4th grade because the school required that the child have a very expensive, specific laptop, that he would then be transporting every day on the school bus system that would require him to travel to a central point for transfer to a bus to the private school. Apart from any issues of public vs. private school, the parent felt that entrusting this laptop to a 4th grader was risky and an expensive risk at that. I think many parents will be much more comfortable with the less expensive, more rugged laptop, and it will serve the child just as well, perhaps better, especially with Open Office available. There is also the real issue that the laptops generally available are expensive, and expensive to keep software up-to-date for many families, and the issues when there is more than one child in the family. OLPC was not DESIGNED for a US market, but only because the technology bigwigs don't look at the whole population, nor at the different requirements for an education environment.