The future of Netbooks and MIDs

So I read on a bunch of places yesterday that ARM is getting into the netbook and MID market. Not only that but also that Ubuntu is going to have a customized ARM distribution for this market. Looks like Intel will not just have competition from AMD and Via in this market but also from the long standing king of embedded systems. Maybe this should be the other way around. Maybe this is ARM reacting to Intel and friends from entering its usual domain. Either way, I think this is great. The current crop of netbooks and MIDs seem under powered for the amount of useful time they provide due to the amount of juice they suck up. If ARM is to be believed, then the newer Cortex-A series of processors have the equivalent horsepower of a Pentium III with much, much less energy usage and heat dissipation. These procs also have fine DSPs embedded that are capable of decoding h.264 content without much ado.

So why would ARM ask Ubuntu to make a custom distro for their platform?Well, if you have ever used Ubuntu you will now how dead simple it is to use. Couple this with the recent reports of returns of linux based netbooks to retailers for the Windows XP version due to complexity. ARM may be onto something here. Ubuntu is really designed for the desktop and to some extent the Windows user. It is really easy to maintain and "most" things can be configured with a nice simple, almost Apple like GUI.

Another nice thing for ARM to partner with Ubuntu is that they have a large userbase that will test their builds for them and give somewhat useful feedback. And on top of that, the Ubuntu folks will be able to optimize not just the GUI that the user sees but also the total system performance since their users will ask for it.

This is really a win/win situation for all. ARM will get a well tested and stable desktop operating system that most users will understand and hopefully enjoy using. Ubuntu will get even more press than they are getting now and spread the word of linux into more peoples homes.

What do I hope to get from this partnership? I am really hoping that ARM will help the ffmpeg/mplayer, Xorg, and kernel guys get access to the powerful DSPs and video processor on these chips. I would love to see a 7" screen with WXGA (1366x768) or WSXGA (1440x900) resolution. This would be optimal for both browsing the web and watching videos. With the great power management of ARM chips, these things might actually be able to last a whole flight from say NY to Tel Aviv. The price of these things might also be very competitive. Much cheaper than the initial netbook and MIDs that ranged from $400-$500. I am hoping for that original ASUS Eeepc pricepoint of $200. If they can hit that pricepoint then I am there.

I have a few thoughts about ARM and virtualization tech, but I am going to let that stew in the brain for a bit before I right down my thoughts.