It's about more that that...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 2:53 PM EDT |
Sure, the rename the netbook thing is about selling more expensive copies of Windows 7. It's also about more than that. It's about redirecting the hardware market away from netbooks to the greatest extent possible. It's about convincing manufacturers that the small form factor really isn't what customers want. All they really want is a cheap notebook after all. Con Zymaris wrote about the morphing of the netbook market: http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/120745/index.html While I didn't agree with everything he said I still think he made some good points. If you look at why Lenovo claims Linux is dead on netbooks it comes down to them seeing netbooks as ever larger and more powerful mini-notebooks that effectively cease to be mini in time. They also become more expensive with time. Microsoft is threatened by the original EeePC concept. The manufacturers that are embracing very small and very cheap are increasingly doing it with ARM and MIPS chips, not Intel compatible. That's a market where Windows won't run and Microsoft can't compete without significant time and investment. If they preempt that market and convince the major OEMs that nobody is interested they win. Of course, there will always be an upstart, much like Asus two years ago, who isn't under the thumb of Microsoft. ABI Research sees a 50% Linux market share by 2012 in netbooks that largely won't be Intel architecture. This is entirely about preempting and preventing that future. |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 3:44 PM EDT |
But caitlyn, "low cost small notebook PC" is catchy. Why, it's almost dance-able. I'm sure it will soon spontaneously be on everyone's lips and we will never hear "netbook" ever again. |
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 3:51 PM EDT |
You do have a point, tc. I may just have to set it to music. I can play it while working on the Yarok MIPS port for those netbooks... um.. low cost small notebook PCs. Someone else got the ARM port :( |
| bigg Jun 08, 2009 3:57 PM EDT |
The thing that is so odd about this whole "evolution of the netbook" is that WE'VE HAD NOTEBOOKS FOR MANY YEARS. If you wanted a notebook, you would buy one. I read discussion of how netbooks will get bigger. That's as ignorant as talking about how bicycles will get bigger, and they'll add a windshield and a motor. Or how next year some people living up north will want to buy shorts with longer legs because it gets cold in the winter. |
| caitlyn Jun 08, 2009 4:00 PM EDT |
Actually we have had netbooks for many years too. My Toshiba Libretto SS1100 is a little smaller than an EeePC 701 and it's going on 11 years old. It still works, too. What changed between now and then is that we no longer pay a premium for itty and bitty. Smaller became cheaper instead of more expensive. Toshiba sold a lot of Libretto netbooks which weren't called netbooks from the mid '90s up until a couple of years ago, all at premium prices. There has always been a market for really small and really portable. There always will be. This is where Microsoft and Lenovo and yes, even Dell, HP, and Asus, are all now missing the boat. If they leave a void in the market someone else will step in and fill it. |
| jdixon Jun 08, 2009 4:01 PM EDT |
> "low cost small notebook PC" is catchy. Why, it's almost dance-able. If we try, we may be able to fit it to the tune of "Purple People Eater". :) |
| bigg Jun 08, 2009 4:13 PM EDT |
> There has always been a market for really small and really portable. Cell phones, iPods, other portable media devices, Blackberry are very small. I'm guessing there's room somewhere in the middle. |
| tuxchick Jun 08, 2009 4:47 PM EDT |
The deal-breaker for me on Web-enabled portables has always been the keyboard, or lack thereof. The Libretto is very cool, but expensive. Now we have small, cheap, and 3G. Throw in a Bluetooth headset and I am very tempted.When I reviewed the Lenovo S10 I was very impressed by the hardware. The software was crap, but I know how to fix that :) |
| caitlyn Jun 09, 2009 12:19 AM EDT |
The Libretto is no more. I thought Toshiba might revive it when the netbook craze hit but sadly that didn't happen. Yes, it was expensive but it was also unique at one point and was extremely well made. It also always ran Linux well and while that wasn't officially supported by Toshiba the company does have an English language Toshiba Linux mailing list that had excellent if unofficial support. I find that you adapt very quickly to small keyboards. OK, maybe I have small fingers but I have no problem typing on mine. "The software is crap" is sadly true of some of the Linux implementations as well. You probably remember my review of the Sylvania g Netbook which I described as a "nightmare". The gOS implementation lacked the necessary drivers to support the hardware. What kind of idiotic move is that? MSI did the same with SUSE and Everex had the same sort of gOS abortion that the original Sylvania did. Anyhow... I still think small, well executed and inexpensive netbooks can succeed. |
| tuxchick Jun 09, 2009 12:27 AM EDT |
Some of my readers got on me for using "sucks" in a headline. No worries, I know other words. I wonder how they would like "abortion." :D But it is rather astonishing that so many of these ship in a completely defective condition. It is baffling. I still remember the ace engineering team that harangued me for 45 minutes in a phone interview on how wonderful Phoenix HyperSpace is, and how their primary design goal is "just works". Well excuuuuse me, but very few of its features worked. It came with an office suite, but there was no way to open or save files. There was no back button on the poor mangled Firefox browser, and no tabs. Couldn't have more than one app open. And on and on....when any random half-experienced Linux user can stuff any general-purpose Linux distribution into just about any hardware and make it work, what the heck is wrong with these folks? |
| caitlyn Jun 09, 2009 12:41 AM EDT |
tc: I agree that it is amazing that anyone would knowingly ship a broken mess but it seems to happen frequently. On to what I know about the netbook specific cases: I've never been impressed with gOS. I was on their mailing list at the time and was pretty much treated to a heavy dose of denial and circling the wagons when I pointed out problems and asked for solutions. Their "Good OS" (the full name of their company) is just repackaged Ubuntu with a different theme and links on the desktop to Google apps and a few popular websites. If gOS did the OS for Everex and Sylvania I think it was probably a matter of sheer incompetence. They had no clue how to make all the hardware work so they just disabled things. Brilliant! In the case of Digital Gadgets (who license the Sylvania name) reports of their technical support indicate they had little to offer for advice other than to reinstall the OS. Since when is that required with Linux? Oh, and the OS shipped on a CD-ROM or was downloadable as an iso image for a system with no CD or DVD drive. Again, brilliant! I simply don't think they had any real in house Linux knowledge. It's really hard to get something right when you just don't know anything about it. I think that is why the Sylvania g Magni Elite (10" model) never shipped with Ubuntu Netbook Remix as promised. They gave up on Linux because they simply couldn't adequately support it. In the case of MSI they never were terribly interested in Linux and, once again, I expect the issue was incompetence. I *KNOW* Novell has adequate Linux resources so I find it hard to believe that they borked SLED that badly. |
| vainrveenr Jun 09, 2009 3:17 AM EDT |
Quoting:The thing that is so odd about this whole "evolution of the netbook" is that WE'VE HAD NOTEBOOKS FOR MANY YEARS. If you wanted a notebook, you would buy one. I read discussion of how netbooks will get bigger. That's as ignorant as talking about how bicycles will get bigger, and they'll add a windshield and a motor..An interesting addendum to this is that notebooks from the recent past -- the ones which "you would buy" -- was the prevalent usage of docking stations for such notebooks. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Docking_station for brief further info and pics on this notebook's extension device. With use of docking stations, notebooks could be kept as light as possible without an extra drive bay or built-in power-draining, possibly-overheating connection-port. One could carry around lighter notebooks and when entering offices, only then, enable the docked notebooks to access wired LANs or dial-up networking. Quoting:Or how some people living up north will want to buy shorts with longer legs because it gets cold in the winterThe "longer legs" here seems quite apt for this use of notebooks to "extend" into docking stations for greater functionality, in this case, access to more office resources instead of the functionality to protect against the cold (except for maybe CPU overheating?) In any case, the evolution of netbooks with so much built into these devices already (e.g., wireless, USB) pre-empts this past reliance on docking stations. |
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