Netbooks lead the way on how we'll be using our mobile phones in the near future

Netbooks are set to revolutionize the mega-trend “Cloud computing” sweeping the technology landscape.

Based on some findings released by ThinkFree based on a survey they conducted, Netbooks are mainly being used for for business, entertainment and communication. Another survey noted that Netbooks will be used as secondary devices. Let’s analyze how they’re being used in each of these categories.

Business

Primarily used for reviewing documents, spreadsheets, presentations and making minor edits, but not generally treating netbooks the primary machine for these applications.

My Opinion: As they are treated as secondary devices, I don’t expect people to pay for Microsoft Office. Thunderbird, Open Office etc are sufficient for simple email management and some word processing.

Entertainment

Browsing the web, listening to music and viewing/editing photos.

My Opinion: As browser and media player are anyway free, Picasa can easily be used for viewing and quick image editing and posting photos to the net.

Communication

Sending email, IM, making VOIP calls and creating blog posts.

Next Step

Since it’s not replacing the laptop, I think what’s basically missing
is a phone added to the mix. I don’t see why users will want to carry
mobile, netbook and laptop at the same time. I foresee a Nokia communicator type device with decent screen size and usable keypad to overtake the Netbook just like Smarphones overtook the PDA. The software being used will need to be adopted for this new phone, that said, software to do all the above already exists for mobiles, it just needs to be made more easy to use.

With larger screen size and better keyboard I don’t see a reason why we’ll not see Netbooks being phased out to give way for the next generation of mobile phones.

Is this thought too outlandish? What do you think?

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