Have you heard about the latest craze in laptop computers? Its the Netbook. It all started with a small company that wanted to make a simple computer which could access the internet with minimal capabilities and sell for $100 so that people all over the world would be able to afford it. Well it cost a little more than $100, more like $250-$300 but it sold like hotcakes and not just to third world customers.
This caught the eye of the big computer manufacturers and now almost all of them have a version. It has a low power Intel chip called the Atom, no hard drive only a flash drive (about 8GB) and can connect to the internet. The market has grown to the point that about 12% of all laptops are now these Netbooks. The computer is very small with a 7in diagonal screen and a miniature keyboard.
A lot of people like them because it is an inexpensive way to connect to the internet, and with a lot of applications now running off the internet gives you an inexpensive computer. The first ones were Linux based to keep costs down, but MS has released an XP version.
Apple has yet to get into this market, but it could be said that the iPhone and iTouch are almost a Netbook only smaller. Maybe Apple will release a larger iTouch to compete in this new market. The problem is that the margins are low for this type of device. Kind of like the entry level car market.
1 comment:
I could not agree more regarding the fact that the iPod Touch and iPhone basically are already in that kind of market. However, I do believe that Apple has probably been working on something like this - a netbook with touchscreen capability. Why not? The Touch is a joy to use, and with a larger screen it would make internet surfing easier. Especially if Apple can make it very light, that would be perfect.
Bear in mind that the margins may not be great on a device like the Shuffle, but Apple can still make its presence felt!
I hope Apple goes for it. They have not denied that they could come out with a device, which leaves the door open!
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