In the early stages, there may well be, as you point out, two distinct classes of NC - a very low-end consumer oriented device, and a more sophisticated corporate device not much less expensive than your cheaper PC's.
However, I think there is a strong possibility that differences between the consumer and corporate NC's will blur as economies of scale ramp up. I can't see a reason why a NC sophisticated enough to run Java apps and even some local apps from a cartridge or CD can't maintain a 30% to 50% constant price advantage over even the cheaper PCs. Why? For the same reason other consumer electronics like VCR's, TV's and such are cheap. The technology in these devices is fairly sophisticated. THe difference is Sony, Matsushita, Mitsubishi, et. al. have dramatic advantages in the sophistication of their manufacturing processes, supply chain models, and configuration requirements over Compaq, Dell, etc.
The NC will not need to be nearly as configurable as a PC. Plus if the demand takes off among consumers, the consumer electronics giants will be able to apply the same models they've used so effectively on their other product lines to constantly keep downward pressure on prices.
You make valid points in a previous post about the bandwidth challenges - especially the bottleneck issues. I at this point don't know how these will be sorted out. They remain the biggest challenge to NC's fulfilling their potential. Perhaps ATM may help (selling dedicated bandwidth on an on-demand basis for extra $$ to do such things as watch movies on demand) to put market controls on bandwidth use. But this is a problem many are trying to solve, and I think it will be solved, or at the very least improved to the point where the NC will achieve critical mass among consumers. |
