Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/04/arm_netbook_shift/
ARM boss forecasts mass migration to netbooks
Desktops, laptops out - small, cheap computers in
Posted in Hardware, 4th February 2010 10:57 GMT
Watch Now : Virtual Machine Movement with Hyper-V
ARM CEO Warren East believes that netbooks will come to dominate the PC market - and it won't be that long before it happens.
"Although netbooks are small today – maybe ten per cent of the PC market at most – we believe over the next several years that could completely change around and that could be 90 per cent of the PC market," PC Pro says [1] he says.
Alas, the magazine doesn't quote East explaining why he believes we all - well, 90 per cent of us - will be buying netbooks a couple of years or so down the line.
There's certainly plenty of room for growth. Netbooks are cheap and easier to carry or simply to stash in a handy place for quick on-sofa access than your average notebook.
We're willing to bet that a large number of laptop owners use their machines solely for internet activities, and for many of them, the advantages that netbooks offer will compensate for the machines' limitations - the small screen resolution, primarily.
We can see lots of folk downsizing to smaller computers - maybe even a majority will. Even assuming East actually meant 90 per cent of the mobile PC market, that total seems awfully high. Anyone who needs to do any real processing - how about gaming, or video transcoding - will need a machine with a bit more welly, and there are plenty of people out there who do.
East, meanwhile, appears unconcerned that many of these will be based on Intel's Atom platform - there are plenty of other opportunities for ARM chippery in netbooks: wireless adaptors, storage units and so on, many of which already incorporate ARM-based controller chips. ®