14 DAY TRIAL // Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop Per Child charity foundation lost another executive on their way to delivering inexpensive and user-friendly educational notebooks. Walter Bender, the former President of Software and Content, has just resigned.
The official explanation for Bender's departure is that there have been some drastic internal migrations from a department to another. "OLPC recently restructured into four areas - development, technology, deployment and learning - and Walter's responsibilities will be absorbed by those teams," said George Snell, OLPC spokesman.
According to the foundation, Bender's initial position as president was cut down during the restructuring, which led to his immediate resignation. Snell also said that there was no software and content position in the organization. Bender will not be replaced, as his former position will not exist anymore in the new executive structure.
Bender was an extremely important human asset for the company and played a key role in the development and deployment of the Linux-based Sugar operating system.
"Walter Bender was the workhouse for OLPC. While OLPC Founder Nicholas Negroponte met with presidents, it was Bender's day-to-day management that built the organization," said Wayan Vota of OLPC News.
The unofficial explanation for Bender's departure is related to Windows XP definitively replacing the Sugar operating system. His resignation might be the sign that OLPC plans to shift its entire XO sub-notebook production to Microsoft's operating system. According to Vota, the organization plans to ship more units of its low-cost notebook, and Negroponte claims that a partnership with Microsoft would be the right decision.
The OLPC organization has lost three of its key executives in a short period of time. The wave of resignations was triggered by Mary-Lou Jepsen, the company's CTO, who left in order to focus on her own project, called the PixelQi.
Ivan Krstic, the company's former Director of Security left in March, as he considered that the company's initial goals have been lost during the restructuring process.
"My personal interest is in helping build a community of developers, educators, and learners dedicated to advancing the quality of free and open source software for learning and the sharing of pedagogical approaches in this community by adopting the spirit and methodology of the open-source movement," said Walter Bender in his exit statement.