Netbooks Have a Huge Impact On the PC Industry 416
Xbm360 writes "A report from researcher Canalys said 13.5 million netbooks were sold globally in the 1st half of 2009. Telecom companies have several bundling deals, with about 50 operators selling netbooks. The success of netbooks also surprised Microsoft & forced them to lower the prices of their XP Home licenses, to regain marketshare over Linux."
Taken with a grain of salt (Score:1, Insightful)
Kind of obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
So we have a story about a press release about a report by some unknown company. Big deal.
This is an important subject, though. The big issues are 1) will "netbooks" wipe out the notebook industry, 2) will "netbooks" become slaves to mobile phone companies, like handsets, 3) will Microsoft succeed in enforcing their ceiling on how powerful a netbook can get. The story addresses none of those issues.
The fascinating thing, and one that cries out for some good journalism, is how effectively Microsoft squashed the Linux netbook industry. The first netbooks all ran Linux. Eighteen months later, it's very hard to buy a Linux netbook. How did Microsoft get Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers to pay for a OS when they had successful products with a free one?
Look! It's a book, a phone, a camera, a recorder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kind of obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Technology doesn't move technology, the market does. People wanted windows xp on their netbooks and they got it.
Ummm... what? (Score:3, Insightful)
It is our hope that one day linux apps will be advanced enough to include a spelling checker.
Also... "Citation Needed".
"According to the latest predictions global notebook shipements are expected to reach 200 million units in 2010, of which, netbooks will account for 25%, or 50 million units."
You know, I'd expect at least a couple of these words to be a hyperlink to some source that actually shows who predicted it, or how they arrived at the numbers, but there's nothing.
Who approved this article? Has the bar really dropped this low?
Re:Tons sold, how many ppl like them? (Score:5, Insightful)
One person in general got a netbook from there husband.
I don't even know where to begin with this sentence...
Re:Tons sold, how many ppl like them? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, all this means is: try it before you buy it. Many retail stores have display models of netbooks these days. Try using it before you spend $300+ on it. I tried three models before getting one for my sister. On one, I could not type more than a few words on the keyboard without hitting the enter key, which was in a weird spot... or something like that. On another, it didn't look too great. I settled for the third. The touchpad buttons are too stiff, but other than that it's been working great. Would *I* want to use one? No, not personally.
Re:NetPhones? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Tons sold, how many ppl like them? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, I love mine. But I did a ton of research instead of just buying the cheapest netbook out there. My Samsung NC10 was known as one of the best, and I spruced it up by adding a 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD and a draft-n wireless card.
And the thing is, I actually sold my beautiful (and ridiculously powerful) Asus G1 because I noticed I was using the netbook for everything. I ride the train every morning and every night as a commute, and really the netbook is perfect for on-the-go computing. I can do my pylons development, whip up some satire, or anything else. Ubuntu and Compiz work fine on here, so why not? Still get my six hours of battery life, so I'll be the last to complain. It's all the computer I need, and I'm something of a minimalist.
If they could increase the screen resolution to have greater height and decrease the thickness, I'd say they'll have hit the sweet spot for commuters. 2.8 pounds and 10" have no problem just being stuffed in any bag, and I think that's where they really win. No need for a dedicated backpack, or case, or laptop tote... just stuff it in a bag with the rest of your stuff, and go.
I used to only build dual-CPU rigs, then I moved on to laptops only, and now I'm a huge fan of netbooks. Not sure where they'll go after this, but I know what my next upgrade will be.
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:NetPhones? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:4, Insightful)
Surprised? That's no surprise. (Score:4, Insightful)
The success of Netbooks also surprised Microsoft
The success of {GUIs | LANs | The Internet | online music/iTunes/MP3 players | Netbooks | every other major advance} has surprised Microsoft. That company has always been more reactive than proactive. Of course, they can afford to be, which gives rise to their rather conservative approach to entering new markets.
Re:Kind of obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
How did Microsoft get Chinese consumer electronics manufacturers to pay for a OS when they had successful products with a free one?
Very easily. An OEM install of XP costs around $45. This is a lot when you are aiming for a $200 RRP; it's over 25% of the wholesale cost. Microsoft introduced a $15 license that is only valid for machines with specifications below a certain ceiling. I can't remember exactly what these are, but you can find them if you Google (single-core CPU with a maximum speed, 160GB hard disk or smaller SSD, 1GB RAM and so on). Linux isn't free, once you factor in the cost of producing a custom version tailored for your device, and so the cost savings are probably closer to $10, and 'runs Windows' is worth $10 to the average consumer so the manufacturers went this route. Expect this to change with the ARM-based devices, which are expected to be much cheaper and (obviously) won't run Windows. It remains to be seen whether they will sell well.
Re:Netbooks w/XP Have Microsoft Imposed Limits (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a wise question.
First, no one said that 1 gig wasn't enough, yet there are plenty of people that do want more as part of the base unit, and there are those that do add more to these netbooks.
The USB stick is insufficient for performing many tasks. You need a CD/DVD or you can't install a lot of commercial software. Flash memory, though growing in capacity and lowering in price, isn't fool proof and is still much more costly than purchasing CD/DVDs for back up. Most thumb flash drives don't have the capacity to back up all our data. Purchasing lots of flash thumb drives can and will add to confusion. You can't play your store-bought CDs though your flash drive without a CD/DVD first used to rip the music. Not everyone wishes to purchase music on-line.
Adding more RAM doesn't equate to bloatware. Adding a CD/DVD doesn't equate to bloatware. Installation of end-user applications doesn't equate to bloatware, at least from the perspective of the OS.
The purpose behind Microsoft's limitations was to make the netbooks less attractive and to push users to the higher prices notebook models where Microsoft's margins are higher.
Mac OS X is killer on a netbook (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm on my third netbook now since they came around, and the second running OSX perfectly. OSX on the Dell Mini 10v with a SSD is really fast and works perfectly. It's a really nice machine to have in addition to another 'real' computer.
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. People are keeping older computers longer now, and newer computers no longer require the purchase of top notch hardware to be useful. I can't remember the last time I bought anything other than the cheapest CPU Newegg offered for the motherboard I was looking to pair the chip with. For general usage there's barely any difference between the fastest chip they sell and the slowest - most home users would never tell the difference. RAM has also gotten cheap. $40 or so will buy you 4gb, which I'll not go so far as to claim is "all anyone will ever need", but realistically it's plenty enough for most desktop users. Heck 1GB is still plenty for most of them and that's been a very attainable number for nearly 10 years now.
Truthfully, despite having upgraded my processor and ram several times in between (mainly for stuff like gaming, video encoding, source compilation, etc), for BASIC usage my newest machine, a 2.5Ghz Phenom with 4GB of RAM, doesn't really feel any faster than my old Athlon 1.2Ghz with 1GB of RAM felt. I still want my faster machine for those times when I do just need to crunch some numbers (and most of Slashdot will need the same from time to time), but for your regular old users out there, they just don't do that sort of thing, and older (or in this case smaller and cheaper) will do them just fine.
Re:Kind of obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Microsoft can't tolerate competitors. So they stopped
trying to IGNORE the product that people wanted. This
product was cheap small laptops. XP really had nothing to
do with it. Once netbooks took off, it was just another
market segment that Microsoft could muscle into.
They used XP because it was the only thing they had that fit.
Like always they were "last to the party". So their current
product was woefully inappropriate.
Linux alters the power dynamic of the OEM+Microsoft relationship a bit.
Re:Kind of obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
And the reason XP netbooks are selling significantly better than Linux netbooks is because Microsoft held consumers at a gunpoint and forced them to.
Right.
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:5, Insightful)
P.S.
Apple and Microsoft are going to have a hard time surviving in the 2010s. Their business model is based-upon selling a new OS with new features like music playback (early 90s) or video playback (late 90s) or HD playback (now). These new features came-about because computers get getting faster. But what happens when users buy a Phenom machine in 2010 and are still using the same machine in 2020, and feel absolutely no need to upgrade wither the hardware or the OS? Microsoft will see its revenue shrink.
Perhaps this is why they are trying to move to a rental model, in order to ensure they keep getting paid even if you don't upgrade.
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:3, Insightful)
It doesn't necessarily imply that revenue will shrink, more likely growth will stagnate which is *almost* as bad and is already happening.
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:4, Insightful)
That may be so, but I would hazard a guess that putting a P4 in a netbook would run much hotter and deliver significantly lower battery life. The Atom 270 just hits a sweet spot for most people regarding power/battery life. I can play AVIs and do video Skype just fine on my 900HA and it 'feels' just as fast as my Core 2 desktop.
Higher Mark-Ups For Laptops! (Score:2, Insightful)
Since the release of low-spec netbooks for $300+, the OEM's now charge $450+ for low-end laptops that used to sell for as low as $320. Reminds me of the cereal aisle, where you get more box and less product for only a little more money. Yay!
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:4, Insightful)
From shareholders' perspective level revenue is as bad as losing. They need to see GROWTH. The problem is Microsoft grew so huge that the only direction they can go is down. That is why they have been desperately trying to best Google (good luck with that!) and also have been vainly been trying to get into the music distribution market that Apple is enjoying huge success in, and why they are going to be opening "microsoft stores" next to every Apple store in major markets. Why? They are trying SOME way not just to delay their implosion, but to continue to grow.
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ever since processors hit 500mHz I've been telling people it doesn't matter what CPU you have, and you just need enough RAM for the OS (not minimal, but enough). It's plenty powerful for anything you want to throw at it.
Of course, then I looked at Nero, which was dumbed-down and rewritten in Molasses. And AVG rewritten in Pitch, with extra notifications windows and a little pop-up which helpfully summarizes whatever you're looking at, in case you happen to be... I don't know, woefully myopic to the point that you can't read the window you just clicked on. And Visual Studio which has to run a compiler every time you open a file. And it was then I realized you'll never win. It's never going to be fast enough after you apply all of the security updates.
I used to be able to watch individual controls get painted because file I/O had a high priority (and apparently even with far more RAM than necessary Windows likes to page things out). Now I have the same experience, only it's because of the applications being inefficient. Black-box object reuse abuse at its finest, like using IE rendering engine to run JavaScript to show a message box.
I'd say Sam's Club is right on the money. Next year that netbook won't run any new apps, so you better be planning on using what software you already have.
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless it was your monitor that failed, why not plug that in too?
I like my large monitor to be fully utilised, and for the small laptop screen to scroll round, so I use this command:
xrandr --fb 1920x1200 --output VGA --mode 1920x1200 --output LVDS --mode 1024x600 --panning 1920x1200+0+0/1920x1200+0+0/512/300/512/300
Re:It's fairly obvious why they are so successful. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do most people watch HD videos on their computer?
I've never done it in my life. Maybe I'm unique. My netbook is great for everything except gaming. Of course, it'd better be, considering it's got more graphics grunt than I made it through college with, and nearly as much processing power.
Deep hurting: re-install Windows XP (Score:2, Insightful)
I just got my Toshiba NB205-N210. On the whole, I love it. But I borked up the Toshiba utilities installation(s) when I tried to uninstall some of them. That triggered a quest to re-install Windows XP. Whoa Daddy!! Took all night.
Problems:
1. No WinXP disk included.
2. No optical drive.
3. No SATA driver on a WinXP disk (not even on SP3) assuming you have one handy (BSOD when starting the installer).
4. I had a WinXP/SP2 disk from somewhere in my past. Wasn't compatible with the CD key on the back on the Toshiba.
5. Some weird reliance the installer has on whatever may already be on the c: drive was producing a corrupted file error that would prevent the XP installation from proceeding.
5a. Another weird error from the XP installer that wouldn't let me remove the existing c:\ partition. It said it was using temporary files on the C drive.
Solutions:
1a. I had a WinXP/SP2 disk already.
1b. nLite.
1c. **IMPORTANT** Save the C:\WINDOWS\I386 directory from the factory installed XP before you blast it!
1d. Created a hybrid installation between the WinXP/SP2 disk and the I386 directory from the netbook. Worked!
2. There are a few utilities out there that will create a bootable flash drive WinXP installer from a source disk.
3. BIOS setup, AHCI->Compatibility
4. See 1d
5. http://www.sysresccd.org/Main_Page [sysresccd.org]. Used it (also transferred to a bootable flash drive) to blast the factory created partitions.
At 4:45am, I was successful. Is this really what is required to re-install fresh XP on a netbook? Re-loading their factory installed image defeats my purpose and besides, I broke their tool that does it. I'm not about to ask Toshiba support for XP install media. I pre-assume that to be worse than what I endured.