I guess I am making a distinction between a low end Internet "appliance" and a real NC. The former to me are the $200 boxes that can surf the net and do e-mail, but not much else, and probably is using the TV as a display with the obvious limits on resolution. A real NC is going to have to have RAM enough to run meaningful Java apps like a word processor or a spreadsheet, a high res display, ports for things like printers, probably and ethernet card, etc. These boxes are barely cheaper than low end PCs at this point, especially when you consider that even just a good 15" monitor has used up the budget for the appliance.
Most of the doubts I have expressed about the rapid and overwhelming acceptance of the NC over the PC are directed specifically at the NC. There may well be an untapped market for the Internet appliance (IA?), but by and large these are people who weren't going to be buying $1000 PCs anyway. Or, they are add-on sales of something to give the kids to keep them from messing with the PC.
Think of a spectrum of users from power users at one end to luddites at the other. The power user end is going to keep buying the hotest thing going; the luddite isn't even going to buy the Internet Appliance. If we start at the power user end of the spectrum, most of these people already have PCs and I think that most of these people will either upgrade to a more powerful machine or stick with what they have because it is enough. To get to a point where there is a ready market for the NC, you have to go far enough down the spectrum to where people don't have machines yet (or sideways into the corporate opportunities I have talked about). Some of these people will go with PCs for one reason or another, not the least of which might be that this is what their friends have so it is comfortable. Some will go with Internet appliances as these become more plentiful and cheap because they are unsure about the level of their interest and need and so a small step seems like the right move. How big is the space left over? However big it is, it isn't going to push the PC out for a good time to come. |
