Nokia’s netbooks – keep your hair on

Nokia’s recently-announced partnership with Intel has caused concern for quite a few key players in the industry: is Nokia planning to give up on S60, Maemo or anything else? Is this a game-changing move? Or is it just a matter of maximising marketshare and revenue? Read on for the full scoop!

In order to understand what is going on here, we IMHO need to take a step back and look at how the majority of netbooks is being sold nowadays. The little critter pictured above (yours truly’s MSI Wind U100) was purchased directly from the manufacturer: which is a way very few people go. It is furthermore used as a subnotebook (and is also referred to as such)…and generally does a formidable job.

Most people get and use their netbooks in a completely different fashion. For them, the device does what a smartphone does for us – and simple always-on internet (no tethering) is a must. Thus, they head to the places where wireless internet can be had: every “fat” Austrian carrier is now selling netbooks. This has allowed companies like Acer to enter the mobile phone market with relative ease: carriers already bought netbooks with them, so why not simplify the supply chain by also getting netbooks?

Nokia obviously wants to keep carriers bound to its brand – and thus has to keep other manufacturers out of the game. Providing netbooks allows Nokia to close a gap where other manufacturers could enter into their market segment…which is something the company definitely wants to avoid. If the netbooks sell well, the better – but it IMHO is like Starbucks and chocolate…

P.S. S60 users could maybe benefit from Nokia’s subnotebooks – I imagine that they might provide excellent integration between S60 and their devices like IBM did to its WorkPads…

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