Interesting article on the blurry line of what constitutes a net-b or an UPL. Personally, it is interesting how the evolution of the netbook space is evolving. As Netbook 2.o is most likely a late Q3/ early Q4 drop date, time is drawing nigh to get your market differentiating product in front of consumers.

The final paragraph (in B/I Yellow) does a good job of summarizing where the general consensus is about netbooks (10" Atom, XP/Win7/Ubuntu, light weight, battery life, $300ish). On the other hand all the models listed below in the 12" category (different processors, varying OS (including Vista), lower battery life, and hover around $400) are more inline with a low cost laptop or UltraPortable Laptop.

It will be nice to see how this all plays out as the economy lurches forward and people starting looking at their computing wants/needs.

All in all, these are 2 different niches - Let the games begin!!

Market researcher NPD says that consumers are confused about the difference between a netbook and a notebook. It’s no wonder.

In the world according to Wintel, the distinction would be fairly clear: Netbooks have 10-inch or smaller displays, use Atom processors and 1GB of memory, and run Windows XP. Notebooks are bigger, use “real processors,” have 2GB or more, and run Windows Vista. But PC makers have refused to stick to the script. Nowhere is this more evident than in 12-inch category, where things are getting more muddled by the day.

The latest example is the Gateway LT3100, a 12-inch netbook that first caught my eye at Computex in early June (Acer had apparently been showing it off even earlier), but has only just been released. From the outside the Gateway LT3100 looks like any other 12-inch netbook. It measures less than an inch thick, weighs a little more than three pounds, and comes in a couple of colors (in this case, black and cherry red). But inside this model is completely different. Here are the specs for the $400 base configuration, the Gateway LT3103u:

• 11.6-inch WXGA (1364×768) LED back-lit display
• 1.20GHz AMD Athlon 64 L110 processor
• 2GB of memory
• ATI Radeon X1270 integrated graphics
• 250GB hard drive
• Windows Vista Basic SP1

The Acer Aspire One 751h has the same display size and resolution, but looks a little more like a typical netbook with an 1.33GHz Intel Atom Z520, 1GB memory, a 160GB hard drive and Windows XP for about $380 (with a 6-cell battery). The Dell Mini 12 uses the same processor and 1GB of memory, but it starts at $400 with a 12.1-inch display (1280×800), 40GB drive and Ubuntu Linux. A Windows XP version with a slightly larger hard drive is $100 more. Asus refers to its 12.1-inch model, the S121, as a notebook, even though it uses the same Atom Z-series chip and is basically a scaled-up version of the Eee PC S101 netbook.

Why exactly all of these use the Z520 rather than the Atom N270 found in smaller netbooks is a mystery. PC makers claim the Z-series results in all-day battery life, but the performance falls short of even the N270. The new Lenovo IdeaPad S12, on the other hand, has all the “proper” ingredients of a 12-inch netbook: 12.1-inch display (1280×800), Atom N270 processor, 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drive and Windows XP starting at $500. That sounds straightforward enough . . . until Lenovo releases an S12 with Nvidia’s Ion chipset, which swaps Intel’s GMA950 graphics for the GeForce 9400M GPU. That configuration will cost more and have shorter battery life, but it should offer better performance.

The Gateway LT3100 is also a bit of a surprise because AMD had previously indicated that it was not going after netbooks. The Athlon 64 L110, which did not appear the company’s roadmap, is a 1.20GHz single-core processor with 512KB of cache paired with the M690 chipset. Instead AMD has been focused on its Neo processor for low-cost, ultra-thin notebooks. The HP Pavilion dv2z, a 12.1-inch laptop, is currently the only model that offers this processor. It starts at $599.99 with a 1.6GHz AMD Athlon Neo MV-40, 1GB of memory, Radeon Xpress 1250 chipset, 250GB hard drive and Windows Vista. The Pavilion dv2z is now also available with two dual-core Neo processors: the 1.6GHz Athlon Neo X2 L335, which has 512K of L2 cache, and works with either the Xpress 1250 chipset or the MS780G with Radeon HD 3410 graphics with 512MB; and the AMD Turion Neo X2 L625, which operates at the same frequency but has 1MB of L2 cache, and is available only with MS780G and the more powerful graphics. To further confuse things, AMD says this Neo X2 is a custom chip, not the standard “Conesus” dual-core Neo processor the company plans to release this year as part of the platform previously known as Congo. I expect to see that platform on more 12-inch laptops.

Of course, Intel has its own solution for this niche: its ultra low-voltage (ULV) processors. This isn’t really a new area for Intel–the company has been selling low-voltage and ultra low-voltage chips for years, but they were typically only in premium laptops with displays of 13-inches or smaller. What is new is that you can now find these chips in laptops such as the MSI X340 or Acer Aspire 3810 Timeline that cost well under $1,000. Right now, these are mostly 13-inch laptops, but there’s no doubt that Intel’s lower-cost ULV chips are designed to compete directly with AMD’s Neo in this emerging category. Both provide an alternative to 12-inch netbooks for a bit more money.

The bottom line: there are a lot of choices at 12-inches, arguably more than in any other laptop segment. There’s a good argument for the latest 10-inch netbooks–they’re highly portable, have nearly full-size keyboards, offer sufficient performance for basic communications and productivity tasks, and cost around $300. Notebook prices are dropping fast, but still no laptop can match that price. But there’s a real difference in performance, and most users who want a 12-inch display (and Windows Vista) will be better off spending more for a true notebook.

Ubuntu on a netbook

Good read on an installation of Ubuntu on what I would consider a "sub" netbook (from the ZD-UK). Read on:

One of my neighbors had seen my HP Mini-Note, and said that she thought something like that would be good for her. I was planning to talk with her about it in detail, to be sure that she knew what she would be getting, the advantages and limitations of such a netbook. However, before I had the time to do that, someone gave her an ASUS Eee PC! She came to me with it last Thursday, asking if I could configure it so that she could connect to my WiFi network.

It seems to be one of the original 701 models, the label on the bottom says "Eee PC 4G". It has very small screen (something like 7"), an equally small (Swiss German) keyboard, and a touchpad with NO buttons (!). It was loaded with a rather dated version of Linux, in German, some sort of Debian or Debian derivative, I didn't take the time to try to identify exactly what version it was. All of this might sound routine to those who have experience with the ASUS Eee PC, but this was the first one that I had every actually worked on.

I decided to reload Linux from scratch, for several reasons - primarily because I couldn't get it to connect, perhaps because it didn't have WPA2 encryption, and I thought that if I was going to have to go to the trouble to update such an old Linux, I might as well reload it with something much newer anyway; also, the owner is not a native German speaker, and would prefer to have the system in English anyway; also, and not least, I had been looking for an opportunity to try UNR on a very average computer user, and both she and the netbook fit the bill.

I initially booted it using UNR on a USB stick, and it came up beautifully. The excitement and satisfaction on her face when she saw how much nicer it looked (and that it was in English) made the effort really worthwhile. After confirming that all the important bits worked properly, I went ahead and installed from the USB drive to the built-in 4GB SSD. As we had no interest in preserving the existing operating system, and I wanted to keep things as simple as possible for her, I simply let it overwrite the entire disk with the new UNR installation. It created a 3.5GB ext3 root partition, and used the remaining bit of the disk for swap. Everything went smoothly, and it was installed and running in well under an hour.

The "Acid Test" part came about because I did all of this on Thursday evening, and I was leaving for the weekend on Friday morning. So she was going to be on her own with it for the critical first few days. I don't like to do that sort of thing, but in this case I didn't have much choice, and she had a desktop system to fall back to in case it didn't work, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

When I returned Sunday evening, she said that she had been using it very happily. Startup and connection to the web via my WiFi had worked just fine, and general web browsing had been good. The only significant problem she had was that she wanted to watch some videos in Firefox, and I had not installed the Adobe Flash Plugin. What she told me was that when she tried to watch videos, it said a bunch of stuff that she didn't understand and which she found quite intimidating, so she didn't go any further on that. That confirms my skepticism about those who say Ubuntu (and others) "make it easy" to install Flash (and other packages) when necessary - I have always thought that many, or most, ordinary users would be afraid to try, even it if looked trivial to us "experts", and would most likely then retreat to Windows and say Linux was "too complicated" or didn't have everything they needed. I wish there was a "Mint Netbook Remix"... sigh.

Anyway, I installed the flash plugin packages, and of course then her videos played in Firefox just fine. She said that the sound was a bit odd - well, no surprise, considering the Mickey-Mouse speakers built into the Eee PC. I gave her a headset to plug into the audio jacks, and that solved that problem. (Hint: in this case, I avoid using a USB headset, because I don't want to confuse the Linux audio configuration even more.) I also gave her a USB mouse, so that she didn't have to fight with tapping on the touchpad.

So, now she has been using it for a couple more days, and she is as happy as a clam. She had no problem understanding and using the UNR desktop (which I still find unpleasant), so I suppose that means they have done a reasonable job of creating something for ordinary users, not experienced Linux administrators. I consider it to be a rather old, under-powered and limited capacity system, but she thinks it is the greatest thing since sliced bread, and could hardly be happier with it. I think that shows that what ordinary users are interested in is solutions, not the absolute latest, flashiest, fastest hardware.

She has now brought it back and asked me to install Skype on it. Again, despite my personal reservations (objections) about Skype, it is what it is and she makes good use of it to communicate with her friends and family in the U.S., so I have now installed that. The text and audio functions seem to work, but the video doesn't work yet - I suspect that the drivers for the built-in camera aren't loaded yet. If anyone has experience with this old Eee PC and can offer some tips on that, I would appreciate it. I will return it to her this evening, and I will advise her to use the free communications for Skype, but NOT to risk one cent of her money with them.

So, all things considered I would say UNR passed this initial Acid Test with flying colors. I'm sure that I will hear plenty more from her about it, and I will be watching to see how she gets along with it.

Smartbooks - ARM/Android Tweeners???

Good thorough article on the good/bad/ugly from non-netbook manufacturers. It is interesting how fragmentation continues to occur as niche markets/narrowcast product offerings increase.

What do you think about smartbooks?

Great idea or maybe a little too "thin sliced"?

The tech industry is always looking for the next big thing: Bing is gaining on Google, the Palm Pre will dethrone the iPhone, and so on. One of the latest “next big things” is the duo of ARM and Android which, if you buy the hype, will wrest the PC industry from Wintel’s grip.

Because it has the DNA of smartphones–most of which are based on ARM designs–this new type of netbook is supposed to offer many advantages over Intel Atom-based models including a fast boot time, always-on wireless broadband and all-day battery life. Qualcomm–one of several wireless companies developing chipsets with ARM cores for this new market–has coined the term smartbook to distinguish these devices from netbooks.

Smartbooks were the talk of the recent Computex show in Taiwan. Qualcomm said 15 companies–including Asus, Compal, Foxconn, HTC, Inventec, Toshiba and Wistron–are working on 30 different devices using its ARM-based Snapdragon platform. The first Snapdragon product, the Toshiba TG01, is actually a smartphone for Japan, but the company showed several smartbooks as well including an Eee PC running Google’s Android. In its meeting room, ARM was demonstrating smartbook and nettop prototypes using application processors from Qualcomm and Freescale with various Linux distributions. Acer announced it would be the first to ship an Android netbook, albeit using Intel’s Atom, sometime next quarter. Competitors such as HP and Dell have previously said they are experimenting with Android as well (now HP may even be working on Snapdragon-based Minis).

But don’t run out to Best Buy looking for a smartbook just yet. Despite all the announcements, there are still major technical and business challenges to using both ARM and Android in netbooks. Here are five big ones:

1. Performance
The multimedia application processors from companies such as Qualcomm, Freescale , Samsung and Texas Instruments that could be used in smartbooks are all based on ARM’s Cortex-A series design. By smartphone standards, these are very powerful processors. They have CPUs that run at speeds of around 1GHz or more, support WXGA displays (1280×720) and can play 720p video. But it’s still too early to tell how ARM-based smartbooks will perform in comparison to Atom-based netbooks, which themselves pale in comparison to sub-$1,000 ultra-thin laptops based on Intel’s ULV processors and AMD’s Athlon Neo. Early impressions have been mixed, but there’s really no way to tell based on the prototypes that I spent a few minutes with at Computex. Smartbooks aren’t even out yet, and Qualcomm has already announced a faster chip with a 1.3GHz ARM core, manufactured at 45nm, which it claims will deliver 30 percent better performance while using less power. The performance of smartbooks will no doubt be fine for typical smartphone tasks such as e-mail and Web browsing, but it will be interesting to see how it handles productivity applications. There’s one area where smartbooks should easily outperform netbooks: battery life. Both ARM and Qualcomm have been promising all-day battery life.

2. Consistent look-and-feel
Now that Microsoft has put to rest rumors of Windows 7 for ARM (though not entirely), smartbooks are left with Linux, which has made inroads on servers, but never seems to get any real traction on client PCs. Notebooks with Ubuntu Linux or other distributions have gone nowhere. Netbooks were probably the best chance for Linux in a long time, but today the vast majority of mini-notebooks ship with Windows XP. Whether you love or hate it, Windows looks and works exactly the same on all netbooks and PCs. The same isn’t true of Linux. There are several distributions, and each one has many different interfaces. PC makers also put their own stamp on this with interfaces such as HP’s Mi (Mobile Internet) on its Mini netbooks. At Computex, I even saw a 10-inch smartbook from Pegatron, a contract manufacturer, with a Freescale ARM chip running Xandros Linux with a Windows XP “look-a-like” user interface.

Linux boosters see this customization as a big advantage. Trust me, it’s not. The smartphone model–lots of operating systems, lots of carrier customization and apps–won’t work well on smartbooks. When you start-up a new PC, you should have a reasonable idea what the OS will look like and how it works. That’s the idea behind Intel’s Moblin v2, which I saw running on many different Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Linpus and Novell’s SUSE Linux–all with the same basic look-and-feel. Google’s Android has a ton of buzz, but it looks to me like it still needs a lot more work. Frankly the Aspire One netbook running Android under glass at Acer’s Computex booth wasn’t very impressive. Even ARM admits that Android isn’t ready for netbooks yet.

3. Software and hardware compatibility
No Windows 7 means no Windows apps. There are lots of good Linux alternatives, such as Sun’s OpenOffice, but they still need to be ported from x86 to ARM. Adobe and ARM have been working on a version of the Flash Player since last fall. At Computex, Qualcomm announced that several developers, including RealNetworks, Zinio and Xandros, are working on version of their software for Snapdragon. There’s also the question of how smartbook software will be distributed. Carriers will no doubt try to promote their own applications and services. A better solution for these always-on devices would be to use the same app stores that work with smartphones. But that means Android Market, for example, may need to support versions of the each application for every display size and resolution, processor and operating system. That sounds messy, and potentially confusing for users. Hardware compatibility is another big challenge. When users plug-in a USB peripheral, they expect it to work. That’s simply not the case with many Linux PCs. If smartbooks can’t connect to printers and digital cameras, it will seriously limit their utility.

4. Local storage
The first netbooks came with small SSDs, and many PC makers are still pushing configurations with 8GB or 16GB SSDs. Often these are paired with Linux configurations. Bit for bit, SSDs cost far more than hard drives; a 64GB SSD costs three times as much as a 160GB laptop hard drive. But a hard drive also has a minimum cost–perhaps $35–because of all the parts. By contrast, 8GB of flash memory currently runs about $16, so a low-density SSD actually cuts costs. The theory is that we’ll all use Web-based apps and cloud-based services to store our stuff. But buyers have voted with their wallets, and they want netbooks with real local storage. The same will be true for smartbooks. The only catch is that some designs may simply be too small for standard 2.5-inch laptop drives, which means they’ll be forced to use pricier 1.8-inch drives. In that case, a 32GB SSD may be a decent low-cost solution with a lightweight Linux OS, but forget about the 8GB or 16GB SSDs–no one wants them.

5. It’s the service, stupid
Perhaps the biggest problem with smartbooks–and subsidized netbooks–has nothing to do with the hardware or software. Instead it’s the cost of wireless data service, especially in the U.S. Netbook data plans from AT&T and Verizon currently cost $40 to $60. That’s obviously on top of whatever you’re already paying for your smartphone, which probably offers similar e-mail, browsing and social networking features. Eventually the wireless carriers will need to offer bundles similar to cell phone family plans, in which you can add lines for reasonable monthly fee. The data caps on these plans are also going to be a big issue. Verizon Wireless has already increased the data cap on its $40 netbook data plan from 50MB to 250MB, and lowered the overage charges. Hopefully other carriers will follow suit (though AT&T is getting lots of flack for not reducing prices for the iPhone 3G S). Smartbooks and netbooks with integrated 3G also don’t make much sense if you also own a laptop. In this case, it’s better to have a USB broadband modem so you can use one wireless account with both mobile devices (unfortunately there aren’t many laptops or netbooks in the U.S. with a SIM card slot). Another option is Novatel’s MiFi Mobile Hotspot, a portable wireless router for CDMA (Verizon, Sprint), and now W-CDMA, networks. It isn’t cheap, but it is very flexible since it works with any WiFi-enabled device, and can connect up to five devices at one time.

All of these are, I suspect, reasons Qualcomm and others are pushing the term smartbook to avoid a direct comparison with netbooks. Smartbooks will be a bit smaller, they’ll be geared specifically to “always-on” applications, and they will cost less than $200. Netbooks are more like mini-PCs; they can handle all these communications tasks but are general-purpose devices that cost more. At least that’s the theory. The problem is that AT&T and Verizon are already selling netbooks for $50 to $200 with a wireless data contract. If I can get a netbook for the same price with a larger display and better performance, and it runs Windows 7 and works with all of my apps and peripherals, why would I buy a smartbook?

Ultimately smartbooks face the same “in-between” challenge as netbooks, only to a greater degree. Make a smartbook smaller and more limited, and it’s just a bulky smartphone. Make it a little bigger, add more features, and tweak the performance, and it competes directly with netbooks and ultra-thin laptops. In this case, a few extra hours of battery life isn’t likely to be enough to overcome the limitations of ARM-based smartbooks running Linux.

That’s not to say I don’t like the smartbook concept. The growth of netbooks demonstrates there is demand for an inexpensive, highly-portable computing device. And having more choice in mobile computing is always a good thing. The idea of a netbook with a design similar to the Sony VAIO P series that is always connected with all-day battery life for under $200 is pretty appealing. But to be successful, smartbooks will need to address these issues.

Notebook price point alert - Interesting marketing

Just received this email from TigerDirect and guess what? It's a solid deal on a pretty impressive notebook. Nothing shocking except the marketing fluff surrounding the deal (listed below):

What’s the difference between this eMachines AMD Athlon 64-bit notebook and a netbook? Big difference. A much bigger screen – 15.6-inch WXGA display that’s great for watching movies, viewing your photographs, working on spreadsheets for work. A dual layer super-multi DVD burner you can use to create your own video, store twice as much info (movies, image -- you name it!) as an ordinary DVD drive. Netbooks don’t have optical drives. And everything else that a netbook has, but more powerful and more practical for using at work or play. Plus, this laptop comes pre-installed with Microsoft Office 2007 – all you have to do is buy the license kit to activate. Bigger and better screen. Powerful processor. Huge Optical Drive. Dual Layer DVD burner. And a price tag that’s so low it’s crazy!

At only $349.99, why not order a couple? One for work and one for home? Or you can purchase one for all your department heads, or your top sales people.

Are you serving our country overseas? You will LOVE this laptop. And we have the best APO shipping in the world. And our customer service is all based here in the US, so if you need us you’ll hear a friendly voice from home. $349.99...that’s a $150.00 instant savings!

Think about all you can do with this new eMachines notebook PC. You can travel the globe with a virtual office at your side. Use the Wi-Fi to network with your colleagues, send e-mails to your family, or work on that Power Point presentation you’re going to make at your next seminar. Watch the latest Hollywood movies or foreign films on the brilliant display. You’ll see great graphics thanks to the ATI video card – all the action scenes will be smooth as silk.

Savor these specs! AMD Athlon 64 TF-20 1.6GHz processor. 3GB of DDR 2 memory. A 250GB hard drive. Dual layer DVD burner. Wifi. Super 15.6-inch screen. Windows Vista Basic. All for only $349.99.

Before I finish let me highlight 2 key features. First, it's got 3 gigs of RAM. That means it's got more memory than tons of laptops that sell for twice as much. Yep, I'm not kidding. You're gonna get a great laptop that will outperform more expensive alternatives. Plus, you spreadsheet fanatics will love this. A full numeric keypad. Most laptops don't have a full keyboard so entering numbers usually sucks. But not on this baby. It's a feature you'll love but only if you hurry!

Mondays get you down? Find it hard to do your work without daydreaming? Well, make those daydreams come true. Order the new eMachines eME625-5192 notebook PC today!

We’ll probably have them in stock on Tuesday, but there’s no guarantee. What I CAN guarantee is – you’re getting a phenomenal new notebook PC. You’ll enjoy the industry’s very best customer service. Great shipping. And incomparable value. Order now and I’ll ship it to your front door, no matter where that is.

Specifications: AMD Athlon 64 TF-20 1.6GHz 3GB DDR2 Memory 250GB Hard Drive DL DVD Burner Windows Vista Basic 1 Year Limited Warranty Click here to view complete specifications.

Thoughts? Going from pushing netbooks as the "economic choice" to "this laptop smokes a netbook" Will have to see who all follows suit.

Microsoft "dancing" on ARM based Netbook OS

Some Microsoft execs remind me of politicians: They really know how to dance around a question in a way that allows them to maintain they aren’t lying.

This week’s soft shoo was courtesy of Bill Veghte, Microsoft Senior Vice President of the Windows Business. Not only did Veghte manage to dodge repeated questions about Microsoft’s planned pricing for Windows 7, but he also completely avoided answering questions about Microsoft’s plans to provide Windows on ARM-based netbooks. His avoidance really got me wondering what Microsoft is hiding here.

From the transcript of Veghte’s June 8 appearance at the UBS Global Technology and Services Conference:

QUESTION: Can you talk a little bit about the opportunity on the netbook side? How big you think the opportunity is on ARM-based netbooks? Where do you see that market eventually going? Is that something that is of interest to you? Would you port there? But can you just maybe size that market, and how you think about that market in terms of your strategy?

BILL VEGHTE: And just to make sure I understand, in the context of ARM netbooks?

QUESTION: ARM netbooks.

BILL VEGHTE: Okay. I think one of the things that is important, as you think about the market, is what is the user doing with the device? From our perspective, we think there are PCs, and we think there are phones. In that context, if they want a PC increasingly that is connected, but they still want, as that PC is connected, they want to be able to have an entertainment experience, a media experience, a productivity experience, a communications and sharing experience, and to date that feels very similar to what a PC does….

I think we’re going to go through a period where there will be a variety of experimentation, and certainly we will compete vigorously, vigorously in the market to make sure that any of the netbook class PCs that they that customers, consumers can enjoy the full Windows experience. And at the same time be absolutely … I don’t know what the right word is, no complacency, watch every device, watch every ODM, every OEM, and listen and learn to what we think the customer usage behaviors are.

I give Veghte points for resisting the temptation to try to force Microsoft’s new preferred term for netbooks — low-cost small notebook PC (or small notebook, for short) — on conference attendees. He also didn’t use Microsoft’s latest line that Windows 7 is currently not available on ARM-based systems.

The UBS conference questioner was smart; he asked Veghte about the company’s plans for porting Windows — and not just Windows 7 — to ARM. I’ve been wondering lately if Microsoft is (or was) attempting to port not Windows 7, but Windows Vista, to ARM. But as the transcript shows, Veghte acted as though he didn’t hear the word “ARM” at all….

So where does all this political-speak leave us? Here’s what we do know:

• Microsoft officials are big on talking up the company’s three-screen consumer vision, with Microsoft targeting PCs, TV (via its IPTV offerings) and mobile devices (which include, but are not limited to phones).
• Microsoft is classifying netbooks as PCs (in spite of the new rumored screen, processor and drive limitations it is attempting to impose on OEMs, so as to curtail which x86/x64 machines will qualify for lower per-copy Windows 7 pricing).
• Windows isn’t available on ARM devices/systems. But Windows Mobile already runs on phones with ARM processors.
• Microsoft is working on at least one project to port Windows Mobile to MIDs, Mobile Internet Devices, which are a class of mobile device that fall between a phone and a PC.

(Can MIDs be classified as netbooks? Are all netbooks MIDs? Why is Microsoft porting Windows Mobile to MIDs instead of plain-old Windows? All good questions to which I have no definitive answers)

Will Microsoft end up porting some flavor of Windows to ARM-based netbooks, especially if Google’s Android and/or other Linux variants start eroding Windows’ share? Or will Microsoft, instead, roll out a new Windows Mobile/Windows Embedded flavor for ARM-based netbooks and slap a plain-old “Windows” label on it? Other guesss are welcome….

ARM smartbooks, Android netbooks, ULV laptops, Moblin and more from Computex 2009

Not really a surprise that Netbooks would be the biggest story @ Computex due to the close manufacturing ties but the interesting nugget is the diversification that could spawn netbooks 2.0 - (feature functionality changes (touchscreens, OS options, processor changes, peripherals etc.)


From ZD:

The biggest story at Computex 2009 this week was netbooks, and in particular netbooks that use alternatives to Intel's Atom and Windows. A Lenovo IdeaPad S10, for example, is running a version of Linux with Intel's new Moblin V2 operating system.

Acer to sell Android netbook PCs in Q3

We'll have to see how this launch goes and what impact it will have on OS options - However, anytime there is another OPTION and another player getting behind the netbook format - It's a win. Don't know how well a smart phone OS will scale to a non-phone netbook but should be very interesting...

From Reuters:

* First company to launch netbooks using Google's Android

* Move could threaten Microsoft's market dominance

* No prices yet, but analysts say Windows XP costs about $25 (Adds details, quotes)

By Kelvin Soh

TAIPEI, June 2 (Reuters) - Acer Inc (2353.TW), the world's No. 3 PC brand, plans to sell netbook PCs that run on Google's (GOOG.O) Android operating system, posing a potential threat to Microsoft's (MSFT.O) Windows.

Acer was the first PC vendor to officially announce that it was making Android PCs, weeks after it said it planned to launch smartphones -- mobile phones packed with advanced computer-like capabilities -- on the same platform later this year. [ID:nLM681177]

"Today's netbooks are not close to perfection at all. In two years, it will all be very different," Jim Wong, Acer's global president for IT products, told a news conference at Computex, the world's second-largest PC trade show held in Taipei.

"If we do not continue to change our mobile Internet devices, consumers may not choose then any more."

Wang declined to give any shipment targets or prices for the Android netbooks, which will run on Intel's (INTC.O) low-cost and low-performance Atom processor, but said the company would continue to ship netbooks with Microsoft Windows.

Netbooks are stripped-down PCs optimised for surfing the internet, and usually cost around $300 each. A computer running on Android could be cheaper as analysts have previously said PC brands pay about $25 to install Windows XP into each netbook.

Android could cost less as its open source nature means developers and brands are free to use it and change it to suit their own needs.

"When we are doing this new Android netbook, we are not going to make the other one go away," Wong said. "Both systems will still remain available to customers, and one will not go away because of the other."

Analysts said it was still too early to say whether Android could really threaten the dominance of the Windows operating system in the PC world, pointing to an absence of software and applications that support Android.

"We'll still have to see what kind of applications the Android software can run on and how stable it'll be," said Vincent Chen, an analyst at Yuanta Securities.

Android, an open-source software that is meant for mobile phones, was first used by HTC (2498.TW) in its smartphones, but many PC brands, such as netbook pioneer Asustek (2357.TW), have expressed interest in using it in its netbook computers.

The announcement came after Taiwan's market closed. Acer's shares ended 0.83 percent higher, outperforming a 0.07 percent decline in the main TAIEX index . (Additional reporting by Roger Tung; Writing by Lee Chyen Yee; Editing by Nick Macfie)

The new "Wave" - More cloud apps/less native software = netbook

Great article on Google wave. Of notice (amongst a plethora of great functions) is the WIM #1 (in yellow below). As more functionality is enabled online (via a browser or small footprint native app) - the value prop of netbooks just continues to grow.

(Per my earlier post about the "perfect storm" - we have 2 of the 3 necessary components showing very tangible results (netbook diversification/adoption and more cloud based apps) Now if we could just see some traction in the WiMax/Connectivity arena... (Btw, did anyone catch the Verizon ads running for subsidized Netbooks (HP Mini)? - Don't know if 3G will provided a ton of value add right now but the price point is getting better with a $40/month starting price data plan)

Google is a remarkable company. Need proof? Just consider how reliant we are on Google Maps to find our way around the world. That didn’t happen by accident. It happened because Google empowered a couple of brothers, Lars and Jens Rasmussen, to open up the developer APIs to the mapping engine.

These same two brothers announced yesterday at Google I/O developer conference a new technology for communication and collaboration. This new collaboration engine unites email, instant messaging, blogs, wikis into a single hosted onversation. Check out the demo here and the announcement here.

These conversations or “Waves” take place inside Safari, Firefox, or Chrome and look like email on steroids. (Lars said that they took the 40-year old model of email and redesigned it for today’s Web-based world.) But it’s way more than that. With Google Wave, Google has:

• Opened a new path to reinvent how we collaborate. You have to see it to understand, but why would you need four products when one Wave will do? It’s a new conversational metaphor that will also easily support document-based collaboration.
• Put the code base into open source to attract investment. Google will attract the best and brightest developers and development with this move.
• Published developer APIs to allow others to embed “conversations” anywhere. In a hope to replicate the success of Google Maps, these APIs will make Google’s hosted conversations a convenient way for anybody to offer these features to customers, members, employees, etc.
• Re-asserted its interest in hosting the world’s conversations. Google will host these conversations. And that means Google will be curator of more and more of the world’s converations. An awesome reponsibility for sure, and one that regulators should pay attention to. Buut someone has to do it. Why not a company with a founding culture of “do no evil?”

Now this will happen only slowly. The product will go into official beta later this year and be evolving for the next 2 or 3 years. But the path is clear, and the implications are coming into focus. For Information & Knowlege Management Professionals and for the industry, this is what it means.

• What it means (WIM) #1: Don’t get too stuck on installed email clients — they can’t evolve fast enough. Notes and Outlook are fabulous tools. But they are installed software sold under a perpetual license model. And that means they can only evolve as fast as you are willing to buy licenses and deal with installation and change management. And that’s too slow to keep up.
• WIM #2: Google Apps Premier Edition is worth keeping a close eye on. It’s a guarantee that Google Wave will appear in the Google Apps sometime soon, so keep an eye on what it might mean if you want to switch providers.
• WIM #3: Microsoft will have yet another innovation hill to climb (and it will). Redmond will have to digest this advance, but it will shortly ramp up its own conversation-oriented online engine. It will have to make this kind of conversational advance part of its BPOS strategy at some point.
• WIM #4: IBM’s approach to collaboration is looking pretty visionary. Lotus has been quietly reinventing itself over the past few years, and if you haven’t looked at Notes or Sametime lately, you need to. And with lead architect Allistair Rennie now at the vision helm, these products with their REST-ful APIs, redesigned interfaces, and Web-centric design metaphors are looking good.