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Thinking Outside the Box - the "Netbook"

Category:  Leverage > Wireless Applications > Up and coming applications

What could you do with a new device that was designed from the ground up to connect to the Internet while mobile? What if your immediate environment was swimming with radio waves that provided low-cost broadband connectivity? What would that be like?

That's the whole idea behind the "netbook" - a new class of low-cost, low-weight, high-performance long-lasting-battery-equipped mobile PCs that start off with a different premise than the notebook PC, or laptop, which was a essentially a slimmed down version of the desktop PC when it came out (back when the Internet was mostly an idea), limited by technology to short battery life and a heavy package.

The premise back when the notebook was first introduced was that business travelers, needed to take the desktop along when mobile, so the laptop sacrificed some speed and storage, but gave the user the essential - portability. Then connectivity was added as a feature, first with dial up, then with wireless broadband.

Now, we've come full circle. The NEW PREMISE is that internet connectivity, not portability, is primary. Portability is expected, but is no longer the primary feature. Desktop applications are expected as well, but secondary. Consumer twists like an embedded camera and pre-loaded Skype, which turns the device into a telephone, are added bonuses. The netbook can do so much more, and costs so much less. This should be a huge trend, but adoption will take time.

The term Netbook was introduced by Intel in February 2008 to describe a category of low-cost and scaled-down subnotebooks used primarily for surfing the Internet and performing other basic functions like word processing. These may be carried out using applications installed on a solid state drive or by the use of cloud computing services. More than 50 million Netbooks are expected to be in circulation by 2011. The first Netbooks should be available by June 2008. Devices such as the HP 2133 Mini-Note PC, ASUS Eee PC, CloudBook, Classmate PC or MSI Wind PC may fall in the category of Netbooks. Wikipedia Netbook entry

(See also my post on the Eee PC from January 14, four months ago.)

I can remember the videos of the Apple Newton that came with the product (on VHS) when I got one in 1994 - 14 years ago. I was captain of a graduate student team on an internship at the Apple Customer Service Center here in Austin, in my last semester in Graduate School of Business at UT. Each member of the student team got a Newton (the smart ones sold theirs right away). I kept mine, so now its a museum piece.

Apple had the vision, but didn't have the technology at the time to back it up. They were a full decade and a half ahead of their time. That time has come now, and the new product is the netbook. The vision of the Newton for always on, anywhere connectivity and computing is realized when the netbook is used in a metropolitan broadband environment.

Posted on May 14, 2008 at 08:02 AM

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