Apple: the Intel Netbook is unstoppable

A typical flow of people passed through the laptop section in the 20 minutes I was there. Toward the end, all of the remaining customers (a few men and women, each) were marveling at all the cute, inexpensive laptops. Cute, inexpensive laptops to them, Netbooks to us in the media who like cut-and-dried categories.
That is circuitous way to get to my point. The Intel Netbook is not going away and is just getting more popular as this marketing research report indicates. Apple's Tim Cook dissed Netbooks back in April for what seemed like acceptable reasons: cheap, "junky hardware" (Cook's words) equates to downmarket, shoddy products. But that Apple reasoning needs an update--the fall 2009 version: a lot of the newer Netbooks coming out now are not shoddy or cheap feeling. (And I am hereby updating my previous pessimistic take on Netbooks too per this post.)
People like cute, light, and cheap--especially in a laptop. This sentiment won't be overcome, as Intel believes, by the emerging ultrathin laptop category, which ranges from about $500 to $1,000 (formerly called CULV or consumer ultra-low-voltage). Certainly not this year. Ultrathins are not different enough in appearance from a standard laptop and not cheap enough. (And recent reports indicate that the ultrathin category is not taking off as expected.)
Intel will never admit in a thousand years that it has created, in the Netbook, a Frankenstein monster of sorts. Intel will, of course, take credit (which it should) for the creation of a new category of computing devices, but my sense is that the company is not head over heels about the Netbook business model--and this is also a reason for Apple's very conscious decision not to make a Netbook. And, as many people are predicting, its reason for pursuing a more upscale tablet-like touch device.
Apple's products and marketing are good but not infallible. And the lack of a Netbook may come back to bite Apple at some point. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not next month. But maybe next year. One of the Best Buy customers eying a Netbook made a comment that was a powerful counterpoint to all the Apple Mac-PC ads. To paraphrase: "You have to pay an arm and a leg for Apple (pointing to the Apple corner), I'm trying to make a practical business decision here."

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