High Speed Internet Access (HSIA): Mobile Internet

There’s no shortage of speculation on the future of netbooks. A few days ago we reported on how Apple see the netbook market and whether they as a company are likely to produce some kind of netbook. Today there’s an interview with Lenovo’s Worldwide Competitive Analyst, Matt Kohut in which he puts forward his opinions on the second generation of netbooks.

He sees the next wave of netbooks being bigger, cheaper, running Windows 7, having touch functionality and with in-built 3G mobile broadband.

He touches on the overlap between netbooks and notebooks and surmises that if people want something a bit bigger but with basic functionality and processing power, they might choose a notebook with a lower end Celeron processor rather than one of the high end netbooks.

There probably will be some confusion with definition over the high end netbooks and the small, light, ultra-portable notebooks. However Matt Kohut’s comment that “There is no reason why a netbook has to be a small system” is a bit strange because, for many people, that is the total point of netbooks. If you can fit it into your bag or even pocket, easily carry it around and yet still have a reasonable screen and keyboard compared with a phone then it’s something that is desired. The cheap prices make it a no brainer but it’s the distinctive small size that has seen the netbook market explode.

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