• Over 200 million mobile subscribers in both Brazil and Russia by 2014
• 853 million subscribers in India by 2014
• 1.3 billion (yes billion) subscribers and 957 million mobile Internet users in China by 2014

And the post notes:

Staggering as it may to conceptualize, there will be more mobile Internet users in China in 2010 than the entire population of the US.

Via TechCrunch

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

Thanks to Sol Libes for pointing the clip out.

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

The minimum that folks can take for granted is that the next version will be something completely different from what folks usually expect of Windows

The post went on to say:

To actually bring together dozens and dozens of teams across Microsoft to come up with a vision for Windows.next is a process that is surreal! The themes that have been floated truly reflect what people have been looking for years and it will change the way people think about PCs and the way they use them. It is the future of PCs…

Although the original post is gone, you can read it at the Google cache.

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

• Apple reinventing file access, wireless sharing for iPad
  Apple Insider writes, “…Apple’s new iPad jettisons the conventional shared file system and introduces a new, streamlined convention for working with document files that ordinary users should find much more understandable.”
• The Failure of Empathy
  The empathy Mike Monteiro is referring to is what’s missing from computer experts when regarding average PC users. He says, “The iPad isn’t the future of computing; it’s a replacement for computing.”
• The IPad Isn’t a Third Device, but a Third Revolution
  At Macworld, Dan Moren says, “The key here, as with the iPhone, is to abstract the nitty-gritty details of the underpinnings and remove obstructions in the way you do things.”
• Why My Mom’s Next Computer Is Going To Be An iPad
  At TechCrunch, Ethan Nicholas writes, “The iPad is a computer for people who don’t like computers. People who don’t like the idea of upgrading their 3D drivers, or adjusting their screen resolution, or installing new memory. Who don’t understand why their computer gets slower and slower the longer they own it, who have 25 icons in their system tray and have to wait ten minutes for their system to boot up every day.”
• The iPad’s future shock
  At Computerworld, Fraser Speirs writes, “If the iPad and its successor devices free these people to focus on what they do best, it will dramatically change people’s perceptions of computing from something to fear to something to engage enthusiastically with.”

Of course, there are plenty of naysayers as well. Like most commentary, posts about the iPad often reflect a vested interest. Apple enthusiasts tend to praise the iPad, Microsoft lovers say it’s a dud. Only time will tell who is right.

In the meantime, if you need to learn still more about the iPad, here are two links that should give you just about all the information you would want:

• Your Biggest iPad Questions Answered
  At Technologizer, Harry McCracken fills you in.
• Walt Mossberg, David Carr And Michael Arrington Talk iPad With Charlie Rose
  Three technology journalists give their assessment. (Video clip below)

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

• Tablets PCs Have Never Mattered–and Never Will
  There’s been a lot of buzz about tablet PCs lately. At PC world, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols says forget about it.
• What Microsoft can learn from Moblin
  Windows fan Brad Moczik got a new netbook with the Linux distro called Moblin. He says, “And as more of our computing experience occurs on Internet-centric devices like netbooks and smartphones and more of our application needs move to the Web, Microsoft needs to rethink the Windows user experience. It’s simply not enough to adapt Windows to these devices. Rather, MS needs to figure out how these devices can leverage the benefits of Windows while providing a user experience optimized for the particular device being used.”
• Top Google Apps in 2009
  Google Operating System lists its favorites.
• Why smartphones became a mainstream phenomenon
  Seattle PI discusses how 2009 was a big year for the smartphone.
• Augmented Reality Vs. Virtual Reality: Which One Is More Real?
  TechCrunch discusses the new mixed reality created by mixing real images with computer-generated graphics.

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

Another effort at providing a simpler PC came from Asia in the form of the netbook. Again, Microsoft tried to hinder a threatened alternative to bloated Windows systems. American OEMs dragged their feet as well. Fortunately for the consumer, the Asian OEMs and market forces have made the netbook a very viable product in spite of opposition from the big members of the Windows ecosystem.

Another growing alternative to overly complex and resource hogging Windows systems is the smartphone, as was mentioned in a previous post.

There are hundreds of millions of people in developing countries who would like access to the Internet but who cannot afford the cost and do not need the complexity of a full Windows machine or even a netbook. A recent development aimed at this market is from a company called Cherrypal. It is priced at $99. PC World describes it:

PC maker Cherrypal has done something Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child couldn’t do: make a laptop that breaks the US$100 price barrier.

Cherrypal on Tuesday announced a no-frills laptop called Cherrypal Africa, which includes hardware usually found in smartphones.

It is likely that few readers of this blog would be interested in a machine like the one Cherrypal is offering but for a poor African, it might be just what is needed. Of course, it remains to be seen how well this project succeeds.

An interesting facet is the way Cherrypal downplays its own product, going so far as to say the machine is “slow”. I suspect that Cherrypal is trying to keep Microsoft off its back by reassuring Redmond that it is no competitor. In my opinion, it’s a shame that Microsoft doesn’t do more for the development of cheap computing alternatives for less wealthy areas of the world.

Added later: To add to the documentation that Microsoft and Intel have tried to kill netbooks, I should have mentioned this post at Technologizer, The War Against Netbooks Continues.

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

Thanks in large part to the iPhone, introduced in 2007, and the App Store, which opened its doors last year, smartphones have become the Swiss Army knives of the digital age.

They provide a staggering arsenal of functions and tools at the swipe of a finger: e-mail and text messaging, video and photography, maps and turn-by-turn navigation, media and books, music and games, mobile shopping, and even wireless keys that remotely unlock cars.

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

For several years, Google seemed to be focused on Web-based collaboration tools, with its Blogger.com service and acqusition of JotSpot (now called Google Wave) as prime examples. But more recently, Google has moved into the cloud business, producing one product after another in a pattern that shows clearly a desire to replace the desktop paradigm — which has Microsoft’s Windows and Microsoft Office at its core. Google has designs to replace the desktop with the cloud, and Microsoft with itself.

The post goes on to list a group of articles that it has assembled that explore Google’s attempt to become the center of computing. These include:

• Can Google really hack it in business?
• A tour of Google’s business apps
• Office suites in the cloud: Microsoft Office Web Apps versus Google Docs and Zoho
• Android 2.0: The iPhone killer at last?

A number of articles about the Chrome operating system are also listed, some of which I have mentioned before.

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.

“If Microsoft could kill the netbook market it would, but they’re stuck with it,” says Kay.

He adds that Microsoft and its OEM partners are using Windows 7 Starter to de-feature the OS on netbooks and make it difficult for users to get all they want.

“They want users to think ‘I need more than this.’ It’s a way to upsell to higher-priced laptops,” says Kay.

He goes on to note:

“OEMs have to keep netbook prices down, so they demanded the lowest Windows SKU at the lowest price. Microsoft had to give it to them.”

But analyst Kay believes Microsoft is more complicit in the handicapping of the Windows 7 netbook experience.

“Microsoft has all but admitted that it despises netbooks, but it can’t back off from them because that would leave an opening for Google’s Chrome OS,” he says.

In other words, without the threatened competition from Chrome, consumers might very well not have the netbook option. Just as without Firefox, we’d have all been stuck with a fusty and unsafe version of Internet Explorer 6 for who knows how long.

PC World blogger David Coursey writes:

Chrome OS may lead to higher-performance netbooks, but many of them will not be running Google’s next-generation operating system.

Why? Because Chrome OS could force Microsoft to stop crippling netbooks to avoid competition with more expensive notebooks.

Blame Microsoft for all those 10.1-inch screens, underpowered Atom processors, skimpy 1GB of memory, 160GB hard drives, and the not-very-good user experience on netbooks running Windows XP.

On newer netbooks, blame Redmond for Windows 7 Starter Edition. It will neither play a DVD nor join a domain. Starter Edition users also cannot customize their desktops, which lack the Aero look-and-feel. And the crippling 1GB memory limit remains.

Even if the Chrome OS never amounts to much, we may all benefit because it will make Microsoft do better things for the consumer. Isn’t competition grand?

©2010 The PC Informant. All Rights Reserved.