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Netbooks are crowding out full-fledged computers on the market

Technologies are bearish. The long-term development trend, the essence of which was the formula “the power of the computer is growing, but not its price,” has been broken by a literally trifling small product: netbooks. Thanks to netbooks, it turned out that the user no longer wants powerful computers. He wants cheap ones.

According to IDC agency, this year 3.5 million netbooks will be sold in the world, in 2012 - 9.2 million. And experts from the Gartner agency claim 5.2 million and 50 million, respectively. Such differences in forecasts are common among analysts. But both are unanimous in their assessment of the trend.

Without knowing it, ASUS eee PC became the founder of a new direction in the development of computer technology. Just a small computer, but running a normal operating system (XP) and functionally equal to a laptop from five years ago. ASUSTeK hit the bull's eye with this product. The competitors, having recovered from their surprise, immediately opened heavy fire on the same target.

In the year that has passed since the announcement of ASUS eee PC - the first devices of this type, inexpensive laptops have managed to form a separate category of PC-netbooks and acquire their own processor, specially invented for them - the economical Intel Atom. However, Intel is no longer able to satisfy the demand for this processor, forcing manufacturers to install the ancient Celeron in netbooks.

The scarce Atom crystal is also used in desktop machines. Dell recently announced that next month it will begin selling VOSTRO series computers (laptops and desktops) using this particular processor in Russia. These machines will be supplied, by the way, with Ubuntu Linux. This is the best confirmation that the rule “power increases, price does not” no longer applies. If Dell is chasing cheapness and betraying Microsoft, its oldest ally, that means the consumer, i.e. You and I should think about IT downshifting.

But let's return to netbooks. The term was first used by Psion (the same company that spawned the handheld computer market that was later captured by Windows CE) in 1999 to refer to one of the Psion Netbook mini-laptop models equipped with a QWERTY keyboard. A year later, production of the Psion Netbook ceased. In its modern interpretation, this word was introduced into circulation by Intel in February 2008 and was first found in an article on Bloomberg.com, Wikipedia reports. Netbooks are cheap, lightweight laptops designed primarily for Internet access, running Linux or Windows XP, often having a solid-state drive instead of a classic hard drive. The formal features of a netbook are as follows: a Wi-Fi module, a network port and a couple of USB outputs. Speakers and a webcam are preferred, but not required. And most importantly - reasonable price. There is no formal threshold (“a netbook is no longer more expensive”), but the consumer knows very well what we are talking about: a netbook is radically cheaper than a “normal” laptop.

Unfortunately, the situation with prices in Russia is still worse than elsewhere. It is 15-25% higher than in the USA or Europe. For example, an ASUS eee PC 900 netbook with 12 GB of memory for data storage, 1 GB of RAM and Linux OS costs $448 (11.5 thousand rubles) in the American Walmart, already 13,690 rubles in the Russian ION, and in Eldorado - and at all 15,299 rubles. Domestic sellers explain this situation by high customs duties and relatively small volumes of purchases.

In terms of the time of appearance of new products, the Russian market lags behind the world market by a month or two. Acer Aspire One netbooks appeared in retail at the end of August, while sales in the US and Europe began in July. ASUS eee PC has been sold on the European market since September, and was officially brought to Russia only shortly before the New Year holidays.

The largest assortment of netbooks in domestic retail chains was found in ION - ten configurations of ASUS eee PC, two of Acer Aspire One and one of MSI Wind. According to Marketing Director Willy Kryuchkov, there are plans to expand the range, since netbooks are selling well. He declined to disclose sales volumes.

Eldorado has been selling netbooks under its own Cameron Maxmedia brand since July. To date, 7 thousand of these netbooks have been sold, by the end of the year it is planned to sell about 50 thousand. Since March, Eldorado has sold more than 50 thousand ASUS eee PC netbooks.

Russian pickers also intend to take part in this holiday. According to the head of the marketing and PR department of K-Systems/IRBIS, Lada Belan, the company not only plans to work in the netbook segment, but will also soon introduce an 8.9-inch IRBIS Mobile model to the market. This information is accompanied by the words: “It makes no sense to pretend that the trend does not exist. Even if there is no rush demand, it will remain very high.”

Depo Computers has posted information on its website about four laptops of its own assembly, including the C8730 model with a 7-inch screen. According to its characteristics, it fits the definition of a netbook, but the stated price is from 16,752 rubles. - casts doubt on the type of product. However, ASUS eee PC is sold for that kind of money - the most powerful.

At the beginning of August, Rover Computers presented its line of netbooks. RoverBook Neo models are equipped with an Intel Atom 1.6 GHz processor, 1 GB of RAM and a hard drive of 80 GB. You can buy them for 13-15 thousand rubles. But, according to a salesperson in one of the stores, this netbook is not in great demand: two or three Neos and about 20 eee PCs are sold per week.

The Russian ASUSTeK informed us that in April 35 thousand ASUS eee PCs were sold in Russia, and in August - already 123 thousand units.

The total number of netbooks sold in Russia by the end of the year may exceed, if you take the word of manufacturers and sellers and sum up their testimony together, 500 thousand. An implausibly large amount: 10-15% of global sales predicted by Gartner and IDC, respectively. Another reason to say that one should be careful when treating information provided by participants in the Russian market.

According to a representative of the Association of Trading Companies and Manufacturers of Electrical and Computer Equipment (RATEK), the market will be smaller, but still not small - “about 300 thousand units.” That is about 3 billion rubles.

Victoria SOKOLOVSKAYA, iToday.ru, - specially for Vremya Novostei