Do Netbooks Have a Place in the Enterprise?
Of course, netbooks have their limitations, which is why eWeek's Don Reisinger recently explained Why Netbooks Cannot Make It in the Enterprise. His chief argument? Netbooks lack the power mobile users need to stay productive. Here's an excerpt: Netbooks...simply don't have the power to run resource-intensive operating systems such as Windows Vista. Netbooks are extremely underpowered. Asus' top-of-the-line Eee PC netbook sports a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and an integrated Intel graphics card. The netbook has 1GB of RAM and up to a 160GB hard drive. But it lacks a DVD drive, comes standard with Windows XP Home, and won't have the power to handle a variety of resource-intensive enterprise applications. Sure enough, few netbooks have the power to run heavy-duty apps. They're not built for that, and no IT manager with half a brain would deploy them to workers who need more computing power. But Reisinger seems to see this as an all-or-nothing proposition. While netbooks may be a poor fit for some enterprises, they might just be ideal for others. Especially those looking to save money: Netbooks typically sell in the $300-500 range, while notebooks usually start at around $600. Multiply that over hundreds or thousands of units and it's not hard to see the appeal. The key issue is the operating system. As Reisinger points out, XP Home is the preferred non-Linux OS for netbooks, and that's not good for organizations currently migrating to Vista (or planning to in the future). The good news is that while Vista requires a bit more horsepower than most netbooks can supply, Windows 7 appears to run quite smoothly on them. Consequently, if your deployment plans are centered on 7, you may just kill two birds with one OS. What are your thoughts on netbooks? Good for the enterprise, or not quite good enough? |
