

Morgan Stanley says Apple tablet killing netbooks - FluidDjango
http://www.electronista.com/articles/10/05/06/morgan.stanley.says.apple.tablet.killing.netbooks/

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bradleyland
How about this alternative headline: "Netbooks killing netbooks".

I was an independent consultant in my last life, so I get to work with a lot
of companies on their technology strategies, and like most geeks, I'm the go-
to guy when someone is ready to buy. In my view, what is killing netbooks is
the growing sentiment that they suck. The only people I know who really like
their netbook are geeks. They like them because they're able to manage the
software on their netbook in the way that is necessary to extract performance
from netbook-class hardware. Your normal user who runs Windows 7 with anti-
virus and their usual suite of software is miserable. I've worked on plenty of
netbooks ranging from the Dell Mini series to Asus Eee, and anything with an
Atom processor running a full Windows stack (AV included) is painfully slow,
even for basic tasks.

I just don't see where netbooks and iPads compete. The people who buy netbooks
aren't willing to give up the things that the iPad lacks, and iPad purchasers
aren't willing to put up with the lackluster performance of a netbook. There
is some inevitable overlap, but any impact will be felt quickly, then taper
off.

The netbook's future must include an operating system that is dedicated to the
netbook hardware. It needs to work well on a small screen, and much like
iPhone OS or Android, it must include design considerations for the hardware
that it runs on. Companies like Google and Canonical are in a great position
to capitalize on the growth prospects in the netbook market. The primary
question is whether anyone will rise to the occasion and build a netbook that
works as well as an iPad, but includes features that non-iPad buying folks
consider important.

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chaosmachine
This is what I predicted back when it was launched, and I got downvoted :)

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1081479>

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jacquesm
So, did you buy Apple stock ?

Predicting the future is easy, the question is which of the various
predictions is the right one, for every 'apple ipad will kill netbooks'
prediction there was an opposite 'netbooks will sell in spite of ipad'
prediction. Consistently being able to predict the future would be very
impressive, on a one-off basis it is expected to happen about half the time in
cases like this.

That said, the downvotes were entirely inappropriate.

~~~
chaosmachine
The probability of making a correct prediction is only 50/50 if both outcomes
are equally likely. Flipping a coin, for example. The probability that one
product will reduce demand for another is essentially unknowable. That said,
it's possible to make an educated guess, and based on Apple's track record, it
was an easy prediction to make. Mostly, I was just surprised that others
disagreed.

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jacquesm
To me it was a toss-up at the time, and I'm still not sure about the longer
term.

I'm beginning to change my opinion on it being a fad though, I've seen some
real-world uses that would be hard to duplicate with other devices.

But my netbook has absolutely no competition from tablet devices (yet), it is
_far_ more useful to me.

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ghshephard
May 6, 2010

More Recent News:
[http://www.macnn.com/articles/10/05/25/potential.impact.stil...](http://www.macnn.com/articles/10/05/25/potential.impact.still.unclear/)

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watmough
My wife has okayed me buying an iPad. GPS is a non-negotiable requirement so a
16 gig 3G + GPS model will hopefully be gracing our living room soon.

I fully expect it to largely replace my wife's MacBook.

Let's face it, like her, most of us just surf the web, write email and update
our facebook and twitter statuses on our laptops and netbooks. This market
will move to the touchpad computers.

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jacquesm
> most of us just surf the web, write email and update our facebook and
> twitter statuses on our laptops and netbooks.

Right. Writing email on the ipad is one of the harder things I believe (at
least, without an external keyboard hooked up to it somehow), and of course we
all do nothing but using facebook and twitter all day long...

Really, I think the 'most of us' may be true in a general sense, but if it is
addressed to the HN audience then I think you're missing the fact that 'most
of us' are probably not at all like you.

Like skinnymuch, above, and you, I browse quite a lot but I would feel like
I'm looking at the web through a keyhole on an ipad. And forget about doing
any cad work, electronics design, running an IDE and so on.

Basically the ipad is great, unless you're actually working. It's a media
consumption device for the most part.

If media consumption is your thing, great.

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bitwize
It's a communications device, not a productivity device. That's what Macs are
for. :)

