RSSNetbooks may be the new mobiles
While everyone has been busy catching iPhone fever, and Blackberries have firmly entrenched themselves as must-have tools in corporate America, the consumer-oriented, scorned netbooks may be the next hot device for businesses.
Although netbooks are viewed by traditional IT types as little better than toys, in fact the devices can fill an important niche between the mobile phone device and a full-fledged laptop. There are a number of types of services which do not require the horsepower of a laptop, and a number of individuals who are regardless uncomfortable accessing any service on tiny phone screens and keyboards, despite recent technical advances in softkeys and touch typing recognition. The netbook can fill an important gap that currently exists between the two spaces, and can do so quite economically, particularly in light of recent trends toward carrier subsidization of the devices.
In fact, in this CIO Zone article, representatives from Verizon and Staples suggest that netbook fleet deployment might best be outsourced, just as is sometimes done with phones. If the economics are similar, the CFO is certain to be looking into the idea even if the CIO isn't wild about it.
Netbooks probably won't take over either the mobile or the laptop niche but they probably do have an important place to fill in between the two for certain applications or types of users.
I was in Best Buy the other day and happened to get my hands on a NetBook for the first time. Man – those are some small screens! I’ve been watching folks using them and everyone seems to be squinting.
I don’t disagree that they have their place, but as the general population gets older, that place may start to grow smaller (just like a NetBook’s screen)…
.
- Dr. Jim Anderson
The Accidental Successful CIO Blog
“Learn How To Think And Act Like A Successful CIO”
Heh… I was just thinking the opposite, that “netbook” screen sizes seem to be getting larger, to the point it’s difficult to tell a big netbook from a small laptop.
I have personally had one of the original Eee PCs for a little over a year now, and my take is that it isn’t so much the screen size as the prevalent web design paradigms. As desktop screen sizes increased, web designers (and application designers, for that matter) have increasingly gobbled up that extra real estate. I don’t know what the average presumed screen resolution is these days, but I’m guessing at least 1024×768, versus the 640×480 of my dot-com era youth. A 640×480 site looks grand to me; newer, flashier sites, not so much.
But this is no different a problem than that facing the mobile world, and designers are increasingly accomodating mobile-sized screens as a matter of course, so I expect netbooks will be well-served in the near future as well.
The subject of geriatric computing is not without interest, however… how about trying to use a trackpad with arthritis?