Ever since Apple announced the iPad, there have been countless stories
in the press about the iPad's effect on the netbook market. I'm a big
fan of netbooks and I agree that the netbook market is in trouble but
it's not because of the iPad.
It's because of Windows.
Now, I don't mean this as a piece of simple-minded anti-MS snark
(though I am fully capable ;-). I'm serious. Windows is the problem
with netbooks. Installing Windows on a netbook changes the device from
a small effective portable Internet interaction device into a tiny,
underpowered, laptop computer.
In the beginning of the netbook revolution, hardware makers chose
Linux. The first generation of netbooks featured small screens (7-9
inch) and solid-state disks. To make use of this platform, they pretty
much had to use Linux because of its small footprint and easy
customization allowing manufacturers the freedom to create user
interfaces appropriate to the device. The fact that the OS license was
free didn't hurt either given the price points that netbooks originally
held.
So what went wrong?
First, Microsoft was able to respond to the threat to its consumer OS
monopoly by releasing a version of Windows XP with ultra-cheap
licensing provided that the computer was suitably underpowered. Asus,
for example, sold both Linux and Windows versions of it's netbooks for
a time. Both models cost the same but the Linux model had a larger
drive. Why? Because the Windows license placed a cap on size of the
drive that would qualify the computer for the low-cost license.
Second, the Linux distributions supplied by the netbook makers were not
very good. I can personally attest to that. My editor's eeePC 901
(pictured above with my own HP Mini 1116NR) came with the Asus version
of Xandros and frankly, it sucked. After struggling with it for several
months, I replaced the Xandros with Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix and now
the machine is a delight.
Finally, in response to the inappropriate user interface Windows
provides for small screen devices, netbook makers made netbooks larger
with 10-12 inch screens and they gave up on solid-state drives. Almost
all netbooks today come with slow 160 GB hard disks. So now you have a
slow 12 inch laptop that costs about the same as a "real" laptop and
isn't really that portable anymore. No wonder nearly one-third of
netbook shoppers are buying IPads instead.
Interface, Interface, Interface.
But the iPad should not be directly competitive with netbooks at the
conceptual level. In many ways the iPad is a remarkable device for
content consumption. Unlike a Windows computer, it requires virtually
no system administration. This makes the device a perfect "television
of the future" where one just uses it to passively consume content.
However, its lack of a real keyboard and limited connectivity options
makes it a poor choice as a portable Internet interaction device; a
role that the netbook hardware platform excels in.
Clearly, Apple devised a near perfect user interface for a tablet,
something Microsoft was never able to do. It is possible that the next
generation of netbooks will do better. There have been a number of
announcements of upcoming models that will be based on ARM chips using
operating systems, such as Android, better suited to mobile devices.
Even as much as I like Ubuntu's netbook remix, it's still a crude hack
to shoehorn a desktop OS onto a small screen computer.
Thanks for listening! See you again soon.
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Posted By William Shotts to LinuxCommand.org: Tips, News And Rants at
5/27/2010 03:19:00 PM |
