I think netbooks (most of which will run Windows, whether you think that's good or bad) are going to stay popular, because they are a full computer experience that's also very portable and very inexpensive, and they complement a desktop and a good mobile phone by being right in the middle and offering the best of both worlds, without being complete competition for either.

As long as netbooks keep improving like they have been while keeping the low prices they are at now, they will always stay popular, and as long as mobile phones keep improving at the rate they are, small ARM devices won't take hold unless they are part of that mobile phone market.

That's my opinion, anyway. I certainly have no intention of getting a small instant on computing device if my cell phone can already fill that role.

I entirely agree there is no good reason for X86 over ARM cpu's it all depends on software and how it is implemented (speed of the GUI for want of a better description).

there are very few people actually need or use software that is only available on windows on a netbook sized device.

Look at some of the multiple ARM devices announced recently I think you will likely find ARM cpu's will power one of the big Supercomputers soon. And it will likely power more and more Servers (less heat, less power but it will give same computing power ok so maybe over multiple cores' or cpu's but does it matter how it gets there in a server).

Once ARM is in servers and Supercomputers (One of MS's big markets is in server software – you think it won't make a version of windows for them?). So many servers are using Linux of BSD these days a switch to ARM or any other processor architecture is no big deal.

Most industries computer included suffer a 10x force once in a while that just changes everything completely in a short space of time. Computer industry has had a few so far.

IBM Choosing a 4bit intel chip for it's first PC??? when there were multiple choices that were so much more powerfull. Intel were as good as bust till IBM made this strange decision. Another was IBM as good as handing DOS to Mr Gates.

A lot of this is just me thinking out loud but if ARM gets it'self as big in the Netbook market and Big in the Server market (this is where cores optomised for power usage and chipsets to go with fast RAM etc will get developed) then it has every chance of coming back into desktop machines.

With energy getting ever more expensive there actually may be other reasons for ARM making inroads to server markets cost of the electricity is likely to be a big reason.

Some people are saying ah but ARM it's a PDA processor. Nope it is just a processor. And the cortex is quite a jump forward.

Disagree if you like, opinion makes the world interesting but doesn't mean it will or won't happen.

John

This magic seems to propagate even into the so positive offerings as e.g. Ubuntu, which also starts to converge to the general idea of a user as a half imbecile who screams in horror only one line of typing instead of clicking is exposed. Particularly on Windows, there is this fantastic option “hide known file extensions”, which also propagated to OSX GUI on Mac, and seems to gain foothold even in some linux applications. Not to speak about filenames with spaces and national characters, which are a true joy for any scripting and mass operations.

Well, after you switch off all the rubbish which was supposed to make your life “easier” (whateverver that means), you must get hold of all the software which you need. For the three last boxes, either it exists in various repositories, or you can get the source and compile – build yourself. I had a disk crash on my MacBook and the new adjustment took about a day since I had most of the packages on the back-up (next time that would happen – it would be 5 minutes – I have a bootable back-up disk now)
For the two small things with 128MB (Nokia) and 64MB (Iliad) boxes you need an SDK running on something else to compile your sources. In both cases you must add yourself the command line ability (x-terminal and shell), for this you get a certain help from the manufacturer.

But am I also talking about the windows machine? Oh yes. When it came, it was completely useless. It was the first XP I have ever seen. Fortunately I had all my editors and my customized version of Cygwin on some CDs, which I previously used on win98SE, and after some days I could use the elephant that winter 6 years ago.

The Xandros on EEE PC is basically Debian. Some of the things I compiled for the older Ubuntu on the elephant I could simply copy to the EEE-PC and it works. Matlab works (with department license over the net). The whole GNU system was on the EEE PC and modification of the IceWM which appears as the windows-like GUI just happend by copying the configuration file into the users directory. EEE PC is thus a full blood workstation of the 2004 standard (also after about 1 days work).

All of these five are underpowered. Some real work I must do on national supercomputers or desktop machines for some graphics (all run Linux or Unix). Many things I can start or control from terminals on the portable devices (in principle also the Iliad, but the screen is very slow and I gave up on installing a full internet connection on it – but I still have the package).

The bottom line – what makes windows to dominate: During the years anybody who does any work or has any hobbies transferable to computer has collected a personal collection of software and habits, better or worse assembled on CDs and USB sticks and other storage means. Some of this is quite old, sometimes better newer versions exist, sometimes the ancient versions are better (at least for the person in question). All this is “installed” in the new netbook when it runs XP home and the person is happy.

It does not take much to figure out how to make that person happier: first of all, the person must be educated. The person must stop reading the nonsense published by PC-journalists, people who do no real work. The academic and professional communities, people who really use computers for work must come out from their professional dark holes or ivory towers and tell the people what IT really is and can be. There is not much place for windows then, nowhere.

But it also requires an easier building of applications on linux. The frenetic use of newest libraries should be avoided. The influence of the windows philosophy, which definitely exists (just see otherwise excellent Google chrome) should be avoided. These things should be discussed by more than the present reader.

RISC : reduced instruction set computer (PA-RISC, PowerPC, Sun SPARC, ARM; supercomputers and cellphones)
CISC : complex instruction set computer – now mainly Intel (Desktop computing – WHY not RISC?)

The new cortex netbooks are looking at a price point of $200-$300 to start and that will be on devices hitting the market Q3 this year and mark my words they will be considerablly more sexy than the current crop. When the mass market is presented with larger, less sexy, less battery etc. but familiar OS and the cortex option which is sexyer, takes less space, runs all day – the choice becomes interesting and familiar OS isn't the only consideration when the other devices look so sexy.

A lot of ARM units look like they will also come with a touch screen (not all but a lot of them) making them smaller for same device and on a 7″ screen a touchscreen is a very nice thing to have.

Lots of years ago I used to think a small device with x86 and full windows would be great but after going through 10 or 20 devices from laptops to PDA's to tablets to Handheld PC's I found it was the CE device that actually became the most productive due to portability and silly long battery.

Doesn't take many people to buy them and start using them for people to notice and re-evaluate their requirements.

Actually was quite funny; the number of times I was on a aeroplane and as soon as the fasten seatbelts light was out I was up and working in about 2 seconds while some corporate person was still getting subnotebook out of the bag. Then we hit some turbulence and I had my device off and stowed in about 2 seconds while he was still saving the doc he was working on. Ended up so many times in a conversation where they asked what I was using and every time they actually took device details to look for one.

I am just looking forward to seeing some retail hardware so I can see the speed etc. as it is about time my venerable StrongArm device was moved on to give me a boost in speed.

John

Currently, the student-computer ratio in U.S. schools is only 4 to 1. It's only a matter of time until schools jump on the netbook market, and ARM-based netbooks might just be the ticket (especially if they can run video).

As for apps, again, ASUS is the one to follow as they have a download site where you can get a boatload of apps with a 'click here to install.' and if one knows enough to enable the Xandros and/or raw Debian repos you can get all sorts of things with a few clicks in a package manager.

For ARM to dominate we will need to see one of the upcoming models ship with the same polish and ease of use. Put a nicely polished system on fairly pretty/solid hardware, price it to open up a market and watch the fun. If it doesn't happen it will be evolution in action. Get stacks of them in stores for Black Friday and use em as loss leaders and come Jan 1, 2010 we will be in a new world where x86 is in a war for survival.

Because Windows and x86 are in the same boat, they are both long since past the point where we NEED them, people just don't realize that life is possible without both of them. Let that idea ever break out into the mainstream and putting that genie back in the bottle will be a fun fight to watch. But it has to be both, it is now pretty clear that any x86 system is going to get Windows cramed down it's throat. WinTel lives or dies as a pair. If customers can't be broken out of the notion that all computers are Windows (except those rich wierdos on Mac) x86 also wins.

And think about this, (another commenter brought it up, but still), do you really think an Asus Eee PC 1004HE is going to still cost $400 in 2012? Do you think it's going to cost that in 2010? The Atom/Via Nano based netbook market is only going to get *better* in the next 3 years – CPUs clocked over 2.0 GHz – 4GB of RAM – 320 / 500 GB hard drives – maybe even dual core, all without raising the price – that and/or the price of the 1.6 Ghz models will drop. I mean you can easily find a 1.6 Ghz Atom netbook with WiFi, BT, 120 GB Hard drive, webcam, card reader, a 3-cell battery, and Windows XP for under $250 these days. I've seen the old school Eee 701 on sale for $199 at Best Buy.

Again, unless the price is drastically lower than the x86 netbooks – I don't see any justification for ARM “taking over”. Even if you could pick one up for $75 – $100 – it's not going to take over, just add yet other tier.

I had a HP Jornada when they first came out, an Asus 701eee and now a HP Mini 1000 with a 10″ screen.

I would buy any inexpensive system that (1) has a 10″ screen with similar resolution to the Mini (2) has a 90%+ keyboard (3) lets me do routine word processing and spreadsheets (4) lets me email and surf (5) ideally is 1 – 1.5 lbs and thin (6) is inexpensive and – here's the biggie – (7) does NOT require me to learn a new OS or to rely on highly techie friends.

So… if someone can put out an OS that is intuitive enough for a solid mid-level users, which runs downloadable apps when I need one (for example, when I realized that Works and Word are incompatible with HTML while I was traveling), then I'm interested.

Let's all remember that a survey not that many months ago said that Linux netbooks were being returned at far higher rates than those running MS. Remember that, once you get to the mass market, familiarity with an OS matters. There are plenty of people around who aren't super-competent even in MS, so don't expect them to muck around with one that requires a real learning curve.

And my super techie friend, who did the Linux mods on my Asus eee stopped using Linux on his own system because it was just too much work.

Come on folks, be realistic about the masses who would need to purchase these systems and realize that they HAVE to have mainstream OSes.