Author of machiavelli.net, proud father of three, interested in shaping network society. Welcome to my blog.Pleading for Cannibalism (in personalized computing)
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Since before the demise of the 12-inch G-4 Powerbook the Mac rumor sites have been discussing a potential Mac subnotebook as successor to the fabled Duo. Some expected a 10.3 inch companion computer based on the iphone OS X, with 16g of solid-state HD, others were hoping for a slimmer version of the Macbook consumer notebook. Not until a few days before Macworld were people suggesting anything like the Macbook Air. Therefore, mixed into the excitement of the announcement was disappointment of the people that had hoped for something with a smaller footprint and a lower price point. These disappointed potential customers now are looking at Linux-based alternatives, like the second iteration of the Asus eeepc or the Dell XPS.
Over-Engineered, Under-Powered and Over-Priced, but Somehow Sexy
The Macbook Air reminds us of the more general problem of the subnotebooks-category: Since the late 1990s the hypothesis was that subnotebooks will be the next big thing, however, it never materialized. The reason is that subnotebooks are over-engineered, underpowered, and overpriced.
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Because the are over-engineered we are confronted with first generations of products that do not live up to expectations and second generations that the producers do not invest enough into. The history of subnotebook computing is littered with one-shot experiments (OLPC), extinct subnotebook product lines (Fujitsu, Sony, etc.), and unsuccesful input devices (tablet-computing, origami, etc.).
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Subnotebooks are underpowered, because of the trade off between weight and power. This means that in side-by-side comparisons with normal notebooks, subnotebooks always loose.
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They are overpriced, in order to cover the development costs and because marketing assumes that senior executives are the most lucrative niche for the product.
As consumers we love the idea of an all-purpose, always-on, always-connected computing device. And we can imagine a world, where our data resides in the cloud, we use on-the-go computing devices for most of our computing tasks. So, clearly, there is money left on the table.
Growth Through Cannibalization
The full-size notebook market took off, when firms started to sell notebooks as desktop replacement to consumers at comparative prices. It is not that the cutthroat consumer market is the most lucrative or even the biggest market in computing, however, it is the market with the greatest mindshare and products positioned squarely into this hyper-competitive market generate the highest publicity possible.
So only when sub-notebooks will be priced in competition with the Dell-Inspiron line will the market take off, economies of scale and learning effects will kick in, and the transformational potential of personalized computing will be realized. This can be achieved, if we apply the logic of commodity-product engineering to the sub-notebook category and a laser-guided focus on that what is necessary. The killer-personal computing device of 2008 would have a 10.3 -12 inch screen (1200×800), a low-voltage 1.5 Ghz single-core processor, an 8-18 GB solid-state HD, a fairly useful keyboard, Wlan, an SD-card reader, and two USB-ports. It is not rocket-science. It would come with a standard flavor Linux distribution (Mint or Ubuntu), an adapted version of OS X, or Windows XP, a free one-year subscription to some type of cloud-computing services (hard-drive, syncing to home computer). An Ipod could always be used as a hard-drive, etc.
Such a disruptive personal computing device would not cost much both in development time and effort. If successful, it will be copied fairly quickly, a competitive market will be created, development cycles will speed up, and it will wipe out the existing luxury UMPC market. It will further the trend towards web-applications, put pressure on Microsoft Windows, and might give the idea of the desktop PC/Home Server second wind (as a companion to the more mobile devide). In the medium term it would greatly reduce the classical notebook market, but would tremendously increase the overall market… one step closer to living-network-society…
