MobileTechRoundup 136: netbook, netbook, netbook!
CLICK HERE to download the file and listen directly.
MoTR 136 is 35:20 minutes long and is a 32.4 MB file in MP3 format.
INTRO: Based on “Time v2.1″ by Meta Sektion, additional mixing by James Kendrick.
HOSTS: James Kendrick (Houston), Matthew Miller (Seattle) and Kevin C. Tofel (Philadelphia)
TOPICS:
The small notebook market is scorching hot at Computex.
Qualcomm’s Gobi will offer EV-DO and HSDPA on a single mini PCIe card.
What the heck should we be calling these devices?
Kevin only THINKS he gets paid from Intel for every mention of the word "netbook". 
Are you taking the "web-only" challenge?
James and Matt have the Nokia N78 in the house.
Freeware of the show: SideShow for Windows Mobile. Now where are all the SideShow gadgets?
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I’m curious to see how the small notebook market unfolds. While sales will likely grow, it’s hard to envision enough demand to support all the products in the pipeline:
- 7″, 9″ and 10″ Eee PC
- HP Mini-Note
- MSI Wind
- Dell Mini Inspiron
- Acer Aspire One
- 10″ GeCube
- AMD next-gen Everun
- Sony Mini-Laptop (unconfirmed)
Low price will probably drive a large portion of the sales, but it will be interesting to see what other attributes (technical specs, name brand, consumer-friendly design, distribution channels, advertising, incentives, other) determine success. Will any manufacturers partner with wireless carriers to subsidize the hardware? Will netbook purchases be impulse, incremental buys (as HP hopes), or will this market cannibalize other products? Maybe some manufacturers will use mini-notebooks as a loss leader to push sales of “traditional” notebooks at the same pricepoint. I’m very interested to see how it plays out, but with so many products hitting the market at the same time, I suspect only a few manufacturers will be winners over the long term. A cloudy day, indeed…