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Clever marketing, or genuinely useful: Netbooks
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An ASUS Eee Notebook PC
Proliferating like wild fire through web sites devoted to tech, the arrival of the netbook has been viewed as the salvation of the computing world. Known for their small size, and lack of a cd or dvd rom drive, these minuscule systems have found popularity seemingly everywhere. But, the advent of these systems raises some interesting questions, not the least of which why now?
In order to answer that question, one must first look at the options in small scale computing and witness where the gaps are, and just how netbooks fit into the scheme of things.
When it comes to computing on the fly and in a small form factor, the logical device that would fit the bill would be the P.D.A. Well, that would seem logical expect for one problem, the P.D.A. has morphed into the Smart Phone. As an independent device, the origainal P.D.A. was an elevated address book with just a little more “umph.” Over time, the P.D.A. was given a new lease on life when they merged with mobile phones.
The subsequent marriage of the two devices lead to the development of the smart phone. Using an actual operating system, granted a small one, the communication aspect of the mobile phone and the computing power of the P.D.A. made more than just logical sense, it filled a void.
This all seemed good, except for one problem. The problem was how to work with something as small as a mobile phone while composing lengthy documents. As long as your computing needs were basic, a smart phone works. But, if you live by the web, seeing it on such a small screen can induce eye fatigue. Sure, you can have full featured html on a mobile phone, but do you really want to spend long periods of time viewing sites on something so incredibly small?
Ironically the very thing them makes them so appealing, their small size, also makes smart phone fatigue inducing if you are working on hard core projects. Once you move beyond a few text messages, editing and composing documents of any length becomes tedious at best.
What is the solution?
A laptop makes sense, but even with the portability, some are still bulky weighty machines. The convenience factor of a smart phones is lost when lugging around a something as large as a full or even medium size laptop.
Here is where the netbook comes in to play.
If you need to email, compose documents and heavy duty multi media is not necessary, the netbook becomes a viable computing platform. Granted, the keyboards are smaller, but the form factor is such that one can fit conveniently in a travel case and is indeed truly portable.
When a full scale laptop is overkill, and a smart phone just not smart enough, here is where the netbook fills a void.
That was the original intention of the proto type of the netbook. In one of those classics, “if we had just known then what we know now” moments, Palm actually released a small scale computer. Released May 30, 2007, the Foleo was intended to be a companion augment the smart phones. Declared a flop and arriving dead on arrival, production on the device stopped in September 2007.
Ausustek picked up the ball on the netbook and in turn found a better reception and suddenly everyone took an interest in small scale computing.
As is always the case in computing, you if you want it all, something has to be lost. In computing, if you want power, you need a big scale rig, if you want portability, then you lose some computer muscle along the way. That seems to be steady rule, at least for now. However looking at the limitations, the notebook could very well be what most people need who compute on the go, or have a full scale rig at home and need the portability factor for lesser needs.
In an ironic shift in computing, the popularity of the netbook is not based on more, but actually less. In a huge turn around, where computing is based on newer, more powerful systems, netbooks run on lower powered processors and in most cases Windows XP, and other assorted OS’s that have modest system requirements – although this may change with the advent of Windows 7 (which unlike its predecessor can run on lower powered systems like netbooks according to Microsoft).
Now, here is where things become interesting.
The other big buzz word next to netbooks is computing is computing in the “clouds.” The notion of “Cloud Comuting,” as it is formally known, is the idea of using software as a service not an application that is downloaded to your computer. A good example of free “Cloud Computing” would be google documents. The files are actualy stored on a remote server and your browser becomes the platform to access your actual application. Convenient and offering nearly unlimited storage, for netbooks–remember they don’t have cd rom or dvd drives, makes sense. The only down side is you need web access to make it work.
Taking the idea of computing in the clouds further, Google, which has had a foot hold on computing over the internet and already provides a host of applications is developing their own operating system. In conjunction with their already popular, and speedy browser, Chrome, Google with its Chrome operating systems is seeking to take full advantage of what netbooks can do.
How well any of this will work remains to be seen. The Chrome operating system is in development and windows 7 has yet to be formally released. But, one thing is for certain is that computing is changing.
The notion of faster and bigger has now turned into smaller and cheaper. No doubt a reflection on the current economic climate, the days when consumers would simply rush out and buy a new rig and jump on the newest software and hardware could be slowing down namely because a computer purchase can be postponed given the power of the current crop of machines.
Even with the newest processors and memory on the market, a machine built in 2007 is not all that out of date in 2009. Except for truly high end computing, photo editing, non high def video editing and document creation, the newest systems could be over kill for the vast majority of users.
The paradigm shift in computing appears to be more about use, function and cost. Sure, speed and performance are issues, but if the price points are too stratospheric, the market place, at least at the moment, is not going to respond well to incremental updates, patches and fixes.
Either as a clever way to sell older technology and find a value niche market place, the netbook is finding supporters that may have purchased larger rigs, but opted for value and placing emphases on what they need to do with their equipment not necessarily what they would like to do in an ideal world.
It is the focus on function and cost that is the driver force in the netbook’s popularity and it could be strong one for a long time to come. The fact that the industry is looking into this seriously and producing so many new netbooks bears witness to the fact that the industry is responding to the demand for less expensive products verses bigger, better and more expensive ones.
There is no hard data to support this hypothesis, but it does make one wonder if those rushing to obtain netbooks are doing so simply because the devices fit a need for extreme portability, or if they are a substitute for buyers who would rather have a full featured systems but can’t bear the cost of a full featured laptop.
Either way, the popularity of the netbook demonstrates that things are changing. They may even change once more if computing in the clouds becomes a viable reality for individuals and businesses on a large scale.
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