I've been saying for a long time that netbooks and cloud computing are intrinsically linked - indeed we developed something akin to a nettop 5 or 10 years ago at Australian Online Solutions but dropped it because web tools like SquirrelMail just didn't cut the mustard compared to Gmail and its ilk (that and we're a services company!).
A netbook (a portmanteau of "Internet Notebook") is a single-purpose device whose hardware and software is tuned for web browsing. Adequate RAM and CPU are required (as opposed to "abundant") but minimal local storage and graphics are called for. Indeed in terms of data loss and breaches read/write local storage is a liability!
Pixels are important though (if not physical screen size) and it's good to see that devices like MSI's new 13.4 inch X320 are finally shedding the shackles imposed by vendors like Intel and Microsoft, whereby discount chips and licenses were only offered for physically small devices so as to pigeon hole them and avoid cannibalising premium sales.
There's nothing wrong with having an expensive Apple-style netbook (which by shedding features for supporting general-purpose use, like optical drives, magnetic media, graphics hardware, etc. are smaller, cheaper and run longer) and as you will see this year, nothing wrong with having a cheap, truly embedded single-purpose device running Linux on Arm. The third category (basically today's netbooks) fall somewhere in between.
I expect the industry to settle on ~13.3 inch ARM devices that run customised linux distributions for a (business) day at a time, for us power users to opt for more capable generic devices and for the distinction between a "netbook" and a "notebook" to blur over the coming years (as it did with the "migration" from laptop to notebook).
In summary, netbooks are facilitating cloud computing as much as they are being facilitated by it. It is a symbiotic relationship and neither would be the same without the other (a netbook 10 years ago for example would be of limited utility without SaaS like Google Apps and similarly, netbooks can unlock much of the value proposition of cloud computing).
That's part of the reason why we've formed the 'Save the Netbooks' grassroots campaign (http://www.savethenetbooks.com/) to protect the term, though the primary motivator is our disdain for intellectual property abuse (the netbook trademark was more akin to a minefield in the intellectual property wasteland than a valuable asset for the taking in our opinion).
Sam
PS ABI Research predict 35 million units will ship this year rising to 139 million in 2013.
I want to be completely honest about something: I can’t stand netbooks. Netbooks have drawn a surprising amount of attention from corporate users, so TechRepublic has tested virtually every netbook on the market and in the process I’ve kicked the tires on all of them.
While I have a few favorites - the Acer Aspire (right) and the HP Mini 2140 - all of them are essentially useless for me. When I’m mobile I prefer a smartphone for instant access, and when I sit down I’d prefer to use a full laptop in order to get real work done.
Despite the fact that a netbook is not a viable choice for me and a lot of other power users like me, it’s impossible to ignore the growing influence of the netbook phenomenon - and it still hasn’t peaked. Here are a few metrics that demonstrate the growth and trajectory of netbooks:
- Taiwan’s Market Intelligence Centre (MIC) had 2008 worldwide sales of netbooks at 8 million units, and predicted sales of 18 million units in 2009, which is 128% growth.
- Gartner’s netbook numbers are more conservative. It predicted that worldwide netbook shipments will grow from 5.2 million in 2008 to 7.8 million in 2009. That’s 50% growth, compared to just 15% growth for the entire laptop market and a 21% decline in shipments for desktop PCs.
- IDC reported that netbooks accounted for 30% of all laptop sales in Europe during the fourth quarter of 2008, with 3.6 million netbooks sold.
- In 2008, netbook sales were still roughly about 10% of the global PC market, in terms of units sold. That leaves a lot of room for growth.
Last week Intel CEO Paul Otellini called Netbooks the “only bright spot of growth in the PC industry,” and said, “Not only will [a netbook] appeal to people in emerging markets as first-time machines, it will also offer an alternative to somebody that wouldn’t have bought a higher-end laptop even in mature markets.”
Meanwhile, Gartner analyst Mika Kitagawa said, “It looks like [netbooks] are definitely stronger than regular notebook growth rates and may be eating up traditional notebook shipments.”
As netbooks continue to spread and become a common option for entry-level users, road warriors, and users who primarily need just e-mail and the Web, netbooks are going to inevitably change the computing world. Why? It’s because of their limitations.
Nearly all netbooks suffer from the following drawbacks:
- Low-power CPUs that can’t handle extensive multi-tasking
- Minimal local storage (often SSDs with 32 GB or less)
- Cramped keyboards
- Small screens with quirky resolutions
All four of these issues are related to the smaller footprint and the lower power consumption of the netbooks. And these factors are ultimately what make the netbooks so cheap - under $500 and even as low as $300. And since the price tag is the primary factor driving netbook sales, these limitations are not likely to disappear any time soon.
As a result, the limited local processing and limited local storage available on netbooks are likely to become catalysts for transferring more processing and storage to the data center, where companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are currently building up large reservoirs of computing resources.
Those three companies will certainly be beneficiaries of this trend - especially in terms of their cloud storage initiatives - but so will many other companies that host Software-as-a-Service applications, hosted storage, and cloud computing services.
Enterprises will also exploit this trend to gain efficiency and manageability improvements by being able to centralize more applications, and in some cases even migrating to more of a thin client architecture. Corporate users have often resisted this scenario because it took away some of the flexibility they were used to on their PCs. However with netbooks, this type of centralization would actually help speed up and simplify storage and applications for users on their netbooks, and so it’s much more likely to be accepted.
