Netbook - History

History

The origins of the netbook can be traced to the highly popular Toshiba range of Libretto sub-notebooks. The 6" Libretto 20 dates back to early 1996 and weighed only 840g. More recently, Psion's now-discontinued netBook line, the OLPC XO-1 (initially called US$100 laptop) and the Palm Foleo were all small, portable, network-enabled computers. The generic use of the term "netbook", however, began in 2007 when Asus unveiled the ASUS Eee PC. Originally designed for emerging markets, the 23 cm × 17 cm (9.1 in × 6.7 in) device weighed about 0.9 kg (2 lb) and featured a 7 in (18 cm) display, a keyboard approximately 85% the size of a normal keyboard, a solid-state drive and a custom version of Linux with a simplified user interface geared towards netbook use. Following the Eee PC, Everex launched its Linux-based CloudBook; Windows XP and Windows Vista models were also introduced and MSI released the Wind - others soon followed suit.

The OLPC project, known for its innovation in producing a durable, cost- and power-efficient netbook for developing countries, is regarded as one of the major factors that led top computer hardware manufacturers to begin creating low-cost netbooks for the consumer market. When the first ASUS Eee PC sold over 300,000 units in four months, companies such as Dell and Acer took note and began producing their own inexpensive netbooks. And while the OLPC XO-1 targets a different audience than do the other manufacturers' netbooks, it appears that OLPC is now facing competition. Developing countries now have a large choice of vendors, from which they can choose which low-cost netbook they prefer.

By late 2008, netbooks had begun to take market share away from notebooks. In contrast to earlier, largely failed attempts to establish mini computers as a new class of mainstream personal computing devices built around comparatively expensive platforms requiring proprietary software applications or imposing severe usability limitations, the recent success of netbooks can also be attributed to the fact that PC technology has now matured enough to allow truly cost optimized implementations with enough performance to suit the needs of a majority of PC users. This is illustrated by the fact that typical system performance of a netbook is on the level of a mainstream PC in 2001, at around one quarter of the cost. While this performance level suffices for most of the user needs, it caused an increased interest in resource-efficient applications such as Google's Chrome, and forced Microsoft to extend availability of Windows XP to secure market share. It is estimated that almost thirty times more netbooks were sold in 2008 (11.4 million, 70% of which were in Europe) than in 2007 (400,000). For 2009, sales are expected to jump to 35 million, rising to an estimated 139 million in 2013. This trend is reinforced by the rise of web-based applications as well as mobile networking and, according to Wired Magazine, netbooks are evolving into "super-portable laptops for professionals". The ongoing recession is also helping with the growing sales of netbooks.

In Australia, the New South Wales Department of Education and Training, in partnership with Lenovo, are providing Year 9 (high school) students in government high schools with free Lenovo S10e netbooks in 2009, Lenovo Mini 10 netbooks in 2010, Lenovo Edge 11 netbooks in 2011 and a modified Lenovo X130e netbook in 2012, each preloaded with software including Microsoft Office and Adobe Systems' Creative Suite 4. This is provided under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's Digital Education Revolution, or DER. The netbooks run Windows 7 Enterprise. These netbooks are secured with Computrace Lojack for laptops that the police can use to track the device if it is lost or stolen. The NSW DET retains ownership of these netbooks until the student graduates from Year 12, when the student can keep it. The Government of Trinidad and Tobago-Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bisseser - are also providing free HP laptops to form 1 Students (11 year olds) with the same police trackable software as above.

Greece is providing all 13 year old students (middle school, or gymnasium, freshmen) and their teachers with free netbooks in 2009 through the "Digital Classroom Initiative". Students are given one unique coupon each, with which they redeem the netbook of their choice, up to a €450 price ceiling, in participating shops throughout the country. These netbooks come bundled with localised versions of either Windows XP (or higher) or open source (e.g. Linux) operating systems, wired and wireless networking functionality, antivirus protection, preactivated parental controls, and an educational software package.

Microsoft and Intel have tried to "cement" netbooks in the low end of the market to protect mainstream notebook PC sales, because they get lower margins on low-cost models. The companies have limited the specifications of netbooks, but despite this original equipment manufacturers have announced higher-end netbooks models as of March 2009.

Ending in 2008 the report was that the typical netbook featured a 1.4 kg (3 lb) weight, a 9 in (23 cm) screen, wireless Internet connectivity, Linux or Windows XP, an Intel Atom processor, and a cost of less than $400 US. A mid-2009 newspaper article said that a typical netbook is 1.2 kg (2.6 lb), $300 US, and has a 10 in (25 cm) screen, 1 GB of random-access memory, a 160 GB hard disk drive, and a wireless transceiver for both home and a mobile network. Buyers drove the netbook market towards larger screens, which grew from 7 in (18 cm) in the original Asus Eee PC 700 to 12 in (30.5 cm) models in the summer of 2009.

Having peaked about about 20% of the portable computer market, netbooks started to slightly lose market share (within the category) in early 2010, coinciding with the appearance and success of the iPad. Technology commentator Ross Rubin argued two and a half years later in Engadet that "Netbooks never got any respect. While Steve Jobs rebuked the netbook at the iPad's introduction, the iPad owes a bit of debt to the little laptops. The netbook demonstrated the potential of an inexpensive, portable second computing device, with a screen size of about 10 inches, intended primarily for media consumption and light productivity." Although some manufacturers directly blamed competition from the iPad, some analysts pointed out that larger, fully fledged laptops had entered the price range of netbooks at about the same time.

The 11.6-inch MacBook Air, introduced in late 2010, compared favorably to many netbooks in terms of processing power but also ergonomics, at 2.3 pounds being lighter than some 10-inch netbooks, owing in part to the integration of the flash storage chips on the main logic board. It was described as a superlative netbook (or at least as what a netbook should be) by several technology commentators, even though Apple has never referred to it as such, sometimes describing it—in the words of Steve Jobs—as "the third kind of notebook." The entry level model had a MSRP of $999, costing significantly more than the average netbook, as much as three or four times more.

In 2011 tablet sales overtook netbooks for the first time, and in 2012 netbook sales fell by 25 percent, year-on-year. The sustained decline since 2010 had been most pronounced in the United States and in Western Europe, while Latin America was still showing some modest growth. In December 2011, Dell announced that it was exiting the netbook market. In May 2012, Toshiba announced it was doing the same, at least in the United States. An August 2012 article by John C. Dvorak in PC Magazine claimed that the term "netbook" is "nearly gone from the lexicon already", having been superseded in the market place largely by the more powerful (and MacBook Air inspired) ultrabook—described as "a netbook on steroids"—and to a lesser extent by tablets. In September 2012 Asus, Acer and MSI announced that they will stop manufacturing 10-inch netbooks. Simultaneously Asus announced they will stop developing all Eee PC products, instead focusing on their mixed tablet-netbook Transformer line.