We are inordinately suspicious of any market which is made by five or six decisions globally, the way the Windows Market was made. Back in 1980s and 90s you could either buy an Apple Mac from Apple or a Windows machine from everyone else. Microsoft then resorted to antitrust to keep things that way, creating a bundling mentality that almost tied up the entire computer industry, in the process stifling innovation.
At almost no time were there a selection of operating systems and you felt free to go out and buy the one you liked the best. Overnight it was down to two, and one was by far the cheapest. At first.
For instance, no one has opted for Windows phones very much, and Windows has a small and faltering market share, and yet operators are cutting deals with the new batch of PC manufacturers, who to a man have come out with Windows Mobile based handsets, almost exclusively. So the market has voted and said it doesn’t want Windows on a phone, and some operators have said “tough” - we like it, you lump it.
Now the netbook market gives us an opportunity to change all that, but not with a bundled, operator enforced exclusive. All we would end up doing is replacing Microsoft with Apple. Far better if it was replaced with Android, but better still if consumers continued to have the choice.
However, slap bang in the middle of this is an opportunity to usurp the Microsoft Intel crown in the process. If phones become MIDs and netbooks and they are selected and funded throughout this recession by cellular operators - and they prefer the consumer appeal of Apple and Android over the enterprise appeal of Microsoft - then as the netbook market takes huge bites out of the notebook market, those bites could be Apple OS and Apple hardware, or Android and Linux based with chips from Qualcomm or Boardcom instead of Intel. We know that today Qualcomm has at least a 12 month lead in watts per mip over Intel, and it does not have the loyalties that Intel has to Microsoft (it is close to both Microsoft and Google and would also be close to Apple if Apple would let it).
So there is too much at stake - the chance to upset the global hegemony of the dominant software supplier and chip maker of the PC era.
Which is perhaps why Apple will come out with a netbook and why AT&T WILL decide to source it for $99 and why many, many such deals will be done, to the immediate benefit of many consumers, but to their long term detriment in terms of future choice. Already this battle has lengthened the lifetime of XP due to Vista being unable to run on most of the chips targeted for netbooks, and US research companies reckon that there will be 200 million netbook class devices shipped by 2013. If half of them don’t need a PC as well, think of the damage that will wreak on the Microsoft and Intel share prices.
Already in Europe such subsidy moves have been made on Notebooks, but none so far are Apple based, and no one has had the spectacular success that Apple’s iPhone has brought AT&T. Overnight, with the right netbook design Apple could signed 100s of operators looking to cash in on the Apple panache.
Meanwhile we also hear that, just as we have suggested above, Dell is lining up to be the next MVNO in Japan offering its own bundled netbooks and notebooks. If it can succeed in Japan, where subsidies are unheard of, it can succeed in any low subsidy market and probably afford to play in subsidized markets once its sees how big the demand is in Japan.
This will trigger a trend for device makers to move beyond partnering with carrier brands, and actually launch their own virtual operators. This is not - as yet anyway - a way to sell the Dell smartphone designs that cellcos reportedly rejected, but a way to offer notebooks with bundled HSPA access and call plans. The first launch is reported to be in Japan, where Nokia has also launched an MVNO for its luxury handset brand, Vertu.
Dell is not officially commenting, but many sources are reporting its latest strategy. In this new strand of the MVNO model, the network owner provides a connection and reaps a fee, usually based on data usage, but remain invisible to the end user - with the twist on traditional MVNOs being that the brand belongs to the device. Amazon's Kindle has been an important precursor, and last week Sprint said it expected to boost its business from supporting services running on wireless-embedded products from music players to business communicators.
As carriers build out 4G networks, with high bandwidth and often with open access models, they will be increasingly happy to find partners to use excess capacity.
Dell, like most PC makers, is looking for new channels as the traditional desktop and notebook markets contract and come under threat from smartphone/PC hybrids. Already, they are selling wireless laptops via carriers, following the cellphone subsidy model, and pushing into cut-down netbooks.
Dell's first experiment with a full MVNO, which gives better customer control and brand awareness than a cellco deal, plus a share of the wireless data revenue, is confined to Japan, and will run on the NTT DoCoMo network, which will also be used by Nokia Vertu. Nokia is also said to be pursuing the direct-to-consumer route for its handsets, via an MVNO deal, in India.
The Dell pilot in Japan will be emulated elsewhere, insiders said, assuming that it succeeds in its launch country. It will involve notebooks with built-in HSPA cards, priced between $500 and $2,000, shipping with a fixed amount of mobile broadband access. After using this up, customers buy additional access with a credit card. The offering will launch this summer.
Copyright © 2008, Faultline
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Subsidized netbook model could sweep away 20 years of PC history
COMMENTS
Fact-Checking FAIL
Back in 1980s and 90s you could either buy an Apple Mac from Apple or a Windows machine from everyone else.
Interesting, then, that I was running PRODOS, MS-DOS, and DR-DOS during that period, and only the school system was running Macintosh. (Mostly, even they were running PRODOS well into the 1990s.)
ghive-mind
All we would end up doing is replacing Microsoft with Apple. Far better if it was replaced with Google, for some reason neither explained nor very clear. Own much google stock ?
PH, not an android.
longest post ever from mr heff?
anyone done better?
and mr heff, you might as well go and crawl back into a cave with your coloured rocks to amuse you. or you could just buy an xbox and enjoy all of the activities in gta4, then you'll sleep at night.
Please accept your free PC with our cell service
Its complimentary, it ain't free.
NO USER SERVICEABLE PARTS INSIDE
Wow, a fucking _think-tank_ to tell me what I've known since I was in the single digits and OS/2 shareware vanished from the front of PC magazines. Free market forces dictate, only they arent free in the tech sector because R&D is a minor bitch, but licensing is a major one.
lets recap!
IBM said : make it IBM compatible.
Intel said : We'll pay for your advertising if you only sell our chips
Sony Said : Blu-Ray is the future; because we say so.
Apple Said : You will buy songs through us, and only us.
Cellphone networks said :you will never own your device. you 'lease' it from us.
Microsoft said : This is a EULA. you own nothing.
Nokia said : Symbian, and only Symbian.
Games Developers said : This is a more Bizarre EULA.
XBLA said : you dont buy the games. you buy points to spend on games.
Steam said : you buy the game through steam, but if we think you're pirating anything, you 'lose the rights' to everything you bought.
MS strongarmed Dell into not selling linux. Then Dell would sell linux online. on bottom end boxes, in some out of the way fucking labyrinthian part of the online sales site. on a machine you got no discounts or rebates on. they got geek credit for this,media face-time, and MS's antitrust woes waned a little.
Apple says "sure, you 'own' the iphone. but, uh, we dont want you using it in any way we cant control. but you dont own the music you paid for. also, have a crippled bluetooth stack. have a constant war over applications. and we'll issue a new patch to re-lock the phone, because you insist on jailbreaking it to do the things you want it to do that its actually capable of."
I too miss the days where the Shit I bought was MINE. Where I could pick up a game and not be lectured for ten minutes about what I am and am not allowed to do with it. Where a telephone came in a box with two pieces of paper; a guarantee and an instruction leaflet.When Music was something you got on a tape or a CD and when you were bored of it you could sell it on or give it away. Where buying a computer meant purchasing interesting things in boxes, spending a day assembling it, and never, ever once being forced into a situation where you agree to do a bunch of pointless bullshit just so a lawyer on the other side of the planet can get a lapdance at lunchtime.
These days are gone. I dont own my phone. I dont own my cable box. I dont own my operating system or a single piece of software on it other than the stuff I write myself. In the future, I wont own my television either. My kids probably wont own books, they'll lease them, or rent them through some kindle clone/descendant, which will track what they read, for how long, and what time of day. we'll rent the books on the cheap, so every other page in the rented, electronic book is an advert about other books like the one we're reading. Our TV will log our requests for On-demand TV and build a profile of what we like to watch and when. We'll subscribe to a brand of radio station that plays music I think I like, thats carefully selected by labels that subsidise the station. I'll take the cheap package. every 5 or ten songs someones upcoming gig from the label will be pushed in my face.
Give it another twenty years and owning a soldering iron will be grounds for a search of your house to make sure you arent circumventing some corporations rights by tinkering with _their_ hardware. My TV log and cellphone usage and book-rental list will be searchable by law enforcement agencies in order to ensure im not a terrorist. Another ten years after that, they'll be submitted to Credit Agencies to determine how much of a liability you are. You'll agree to this, otherwise you wont be able to rent books or watch TV or use a phone. Freedom of information act, not to mention nutbags with agendas and good old fashioned crap security means that If I watch 'Natural Born Killers' 18 times over the course of a month, someone might come and knock on my door to have a chat about _why_.
If you think this is all tin-foil-hat talk, the purchase and distributions of chemicals now places you on a watch-list, as certain chemicals are integral in the fabrication of explosives and horrid toxic shit like Sarin and the like. of course, I _might_ just be trying to start a cottage-industry soap factory in my basement, but I bet im going to have to fill out an awful lot of forms for it, and isnt it suspicious that I want to make my own soap?
We'll reach a stage where opening something to find out how it works, probably what got most of us into the tech sector to start with, will put us in breach of the law. I crack my iphones case and wire in a replacement bluetooth stack; I've just voided my contract, breached RIAA/MPAA/DCMA jargon and m now liable for a fine. because its not mine, even though I payed for it, even though Im still paying for it, even though i'll be legally obliged to continue paying for it even after my service has been withdrawn due to me tinkering with the hardware.
really. no user serviceable parts are inside.
