It makes total sense for a CEO to be optimistic about the future of his or her product. But predicting that netbooks will grow from 10 per cent of the PC market to 90 per cent? Warren East, you’ve gone and lost your mind.
ARM’s head honcho made the remark in an interview posted today at PC Pro. His reasoning? Well… there wasn’t really any. Not that was reported, at least. Probably because it’s an indefensible (though attention-grabbing!) position.
This is nothing against netbooks as a category! They obviously scratch an itch, especially during a down economy. But unless they get significantly more powerful, there’s no way they’re going to make up the majority of PC sales, much less the super-ultra majority East proposes. And if they do become that much more powerful, are they still netbooks? Or are they ultraportables? Or neither, since all these categories are pretty much arbitrary marketing speak anyway? [PC Pro via Slashdot]
matt
Thursday, February 4, 2010 at 10:26 AMthats a good point, define netbook? I think many people incorrectly think they are small laptops, not true, before laptops there were small ultra portables, I remember the first one of note, from asus, 11″ leather, pitiful specs and $3k (and this was only like a year before the first eeepc).
then there is the current example of the m11x alienware one, that is NOT a netbook, what a netbook is is in its name! its a computer only powerful enough to run the net!
size, power, price, pick two, netbooks pick size and price, ultra portables pick size and power.
I think what really defines whether or not the net book market disappears or merges with ultra portables is the net. obviously. if it becomes so advanced that is the most computationally expensive task to do on your computer, the obviously they will merge.
but I don’t think that’s what arm is hoping for.
but thats ok, apple is running on the same logic at the moment, you just have to watch that video with Patrick Stuart to see that the vast majority of consumers would be happy with a computer just powerful enough to run the net (that includes word processors and other general productivity apps, and email ect).
even big IT companies use thin clients and RD into virtual machines in their big server banks.
as long as you can plug a keyboard, mouse and monitor into one, I can’t see why the vast majority would want anything else.