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35 million netbooks forecast to be shipped this year

by Scott Bicheno on 27 January 2009, 11:28

Tags: Acer (TPE:2353), ASUSTeK (TPE:2357)

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A new business model?

The New York Times recently published a piece entitled $200 Laptops Break a Business Model, in which it suggested that while netbooks are bad news for companies hoping to make a decent margin from selling hardware or operating systems, they benefit newer niches like cloud computing and web-based services.

Of course there will always be demand for the bigger screens and higher performance of the notebook, or the convenience of the smartphone, but it's clear that increasingly they're going to have to share the market with netbooks.

And it could be those companies that service this new market most effectively that will be the new kings of the technology business. ASUS and Acer are the early leaders in unit shipments, but the bigger potential is in providing software and services specifically designed for the netbook usage model.

 


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Posted by nichomach - Tue 27 Jan 2009 14:30
in which it suggested that while netbooks are bad news for companies hoping to make a decent margin from selling hardware or operating systems, they benefit newer niches like cloud computing and web-based services.

Only if one assumes that the devices are primarily going to be used to access cloud/web-based services; the increase in storage capacity among more recent devices (160GB hard drives etc) plus the increase in form factor would indicate to me that rather than the cloud these are more likely to be used to access local applications and services.
Posted by greenalien - Wed 28 Jan 2009 11:40
It's all about portability, specifically portable web access. Mobile phones have tried - and largely failed - to grab this territory because the screens and keyboards are too small. A typical small laptop is too large, heavy and power hungry, to say nothing of the cost. The netbook is the solution - they are already great for WiFi and just need to have 3G HSDPA integrated to be complete - I don't understand why this has not happened already as it's such an obvious next step. Using Linux, particularly the increasingly popular, and capable, Ubuntu variant, means that the operating system comes free - and if all it's going to be used for is to run Firefox and Open Office - it does the job fine, no big learning curve (although getting a USB 3G dongle to work under Ubuntu is not exactly simple yet!). The Atom processer - twin core, 1.6 MHz - is well up to the job and will happily deal with full-screen video playback. Solid state drives give robust data storage, better battery life and low noise. Microsoft are rapidly getting cut out of this market and are going to be the real losers. Most computers are only used for a fraction of their capability anyway, so I can see more and more people getting netbooks, and just plugging in a keyboard and screen for desktop use.
Posted by nichomach - Wed 28 Jan 2009 12:06
1) HSDPA modules usually cost around £90-£120 a pop. That's a non-trivial addition to the cost of a netbook; in fact up until now, about the only bunch who've been going down that route are the mobile phone companies like Voda, subsidising machines like the Dell Mini9 with integrated HSDPA, but locked to Voda. It may be obvious for people who only want web access, but I'd suggest that there're a lot of people buying these machines who will be using them for basic WP/Spreadsheet/Office-y type stuff, or for accessing locally held content - hence the greater number shipping with non-SSD storage - and they certainly won't want their shiny new netbooks to be £100-odd dearer to keep the “everything's in the cloud” weenies happy :).
2) Atom != dual-core, at least not in the netbook/MID variants (N270 and Z5XX series). The 330 is dual-core, but that's for nettops (desktops). The N270 and some of the Z5XX series do support hyperthreading, though. I fink you may have meant 1.6GHz, too… :)
3) Microsoft's problem has been that Vista performs like ****, so they've had nothing newer than XP to offer in the netbook/nettop segment. Windows 7 appears to run as fast as or in some cases faster than XP on most recent-ish hardware, including netbooks based on the N270. MS are not going to get out of that segment, especially when the shipments of netbooks/tops with XP have at least kept pace with, if not outstripped, those with Linux.
Posted by Ian McNaughton - Fri 30 Jan 2009 16:50
Personally, I think netbooks are more a toy than a true usable notebook, the original price points have not been met, the original battery life promises have yet to be reached, functionality is limited, usability is challenged, retail return rates are horrendous and the user has no HD capabilities at all. What does this all add up to, COMPROMISE! Netbooks force consumers to compromise, they set expectations and rarely deliver.
If all a users wants to do is check email at Starbucks, great a Netbook is for you, BUT, if a user wants any functionality at all, ultraportable notebooks are the product best suited to purchase! They have 4+ hrs of battery life, FULL HD abilities on HD-capable panels and monitors, larger screens, and optionally, discrete ATI Radeon graphics to play today’s latest games they are thin and really light and have MSRPs as low as 599$ and 699$ USD, they are among the best notebooks available (end of March) in the market. Check out the HP Pavillion dv2 on HEXUS TV.

Ian “Cabrtosr” McNaughton

Twitter: IanMcNaughton
Posted by greenalien - Mon 02 Feb 2009 09:26
1) HSDPA modules usually cost around £90-£120 a pop
Well, ‘3’ broadband seem quite happy to supply me with a free HSDPA dongle and 5GB/month for £7:50 a month, presumably they'd be happy to subsidise netbooks in the same way - I'd just like to be able to put the SIM card directly into the netbook.

2) Atom != dual-core, at least not in the netbook/MID variants (N270 and Z5XX series)
Strange, then, that the N270 in my Dell Inspiron 910 netbook reports two processors…
I did mean 1.6GHz though…

Microsoft's problem has been that Vista performs like ****
Who needs Microsoft? On a netbook, the main application is a web browser, and Firefox works very well under Linux. Furthermore, the latest version of Ubuntu Linux is very usable and includes Open Office. Why pay when you can have something that works OK and costs nothing?

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