Quote:
Originally Posted by Crowl
They haven't completely ignored the low-end internet appliance market as they have that sony dash thing, but you have to assume their reasoning for not having anything in the netbook market is similar to that of apple, they have a mostly premium brand and there isn't much scope to take advantage of that with a netbook where margins are tight. Tablets, whether they are windows or android based would seem like a smart move for sony since the margins are higher.
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With respect, besides you (and now me) no one in this blessed world has ever heard of, seen in real life or possibly actually bought, the Sony
Dash. Remind me: what is the point of this device?
Netbooks, OTOH, have been in market since CES 2008 when they were "all the buzz" at the January Las Vegas meet up and ASUS was leading the parade.
An entire class of computing has emerged since and most major brand names have climbed onboard ... Sony and Apple being significant "no shows". There is (profitable) room between -- well, nothing, and "clunky" laptops -- where Internet mobility and physical portability are more important than a requirement to edit videos with the latest release of Adobe Premiere or being able to have the fastest smokin' CPU and video chips in order to play online games and crush all comers.
Jeez ... some of us really like light weight, long battery life, basic web and e-mail access in a small form factor that fits in the in-room safe while we're on holiday ... and in a pinch runs familiar software and can make a full VPN connection back to the office. And this is the market that Apple and Sony have walked away from; and Dell and a few others, are taking wait 'n' see. Meanwhile newish players like ASUS, and established players like HP, are reaping profits and locking in new customer relationships.
I see the new tablet space as the next playground and, in this instance, Apple may be kick-starting the playing field but has a lot of baggage which may prevent it from winning the game. This is not iTunes
déjà vu. Apple believes the "low-end" tablet will cannibalize sales of pricier Macs and seeks to "cripple" iPad accordingly. It is supremely missing the point of what tablets brings to the party: mid-price, mid-range capabilities. Tablets are about playback; netbooks about contributing content -- why should
playback only be priced at a premium? But that is Apple's view.
It has to be said Microsoft shares this view to some extent -- although it is more flexible. It wants to put Windows -- CE, XP, 7 -- onto every screen. Its biggest challenge is -- in spite of an incredible pool of talent -- Microsoft so far has not been able to develop any OS that truly embraces a touch screen. And that provides Android an opening as it takes a page from Apple's book and tries to expand the mobile phone OS onto larger --
but not too large -- screens. The biggest risk to Microsoft is Google's Android (or is it Chromium?) makes the leap from small screen (as in 7" to 12") to big screen (as in 52" HD TV)
and bypasses the laptop/desktop altogether.
What would the world look like if: Apple and Android owned the mobile phone; Android and Apple owned the tablet; netbooks were owned by Microsoft but consumers were content with tablets?; Microsoft owned the laptop/desktop; and Android/Chromium/Logitech took over (the interface to) the big screen?
E-readers become a footnote here: a
Lieutenant Kijé in a battle far above his rank. And that, too, isn't a bad thing: since e-reading for now remains about, well, reading -- and not video or live chat or social media. Perhaps e-ink and its successors can focus on just presenting the texts, ma'am.