For professionals tired of lugging around clunky laptops — which at their beefiest can top 10 pounds — salvation may be at hand. Big laptops on the road can deliver comparable performance to desktop computers at the office, but innovations are making it easier to access vital software and business data for less money without the need for the fastest computer on the street.
Cloud computing, third-party data storage, and mobile Web access through netbooks are combining to form a less-expensive way to meet certain business IT needs.
Bruce Simon, director of data sales for the New York metro region at Verizon Wireless, said the environment is ripe for more users to tap software on the go. Netbooks — mini-laptops with scaled-down features — rely on Web access to put programs in users’ hands. Typically priced under $500, netbooks offer a compromise between cost and functionality.
Simon said netbooks fit somewhere between smartphones and traditional laptops for users’ mobile data needs. “The average netbook session may last 30 minutes, versus the average smartphone session at three minutes,” he said.
Sales of these tiny computers are growing rapidly. DisplaySearch, in Austin, a subsidiary of the research company NPD Group, released a report on April 1 forecasting year-over-year growth of more than 65 percent for netbook sales in 2009, which would top 27 million units.
ABI Research, in New York, forecasts 35 million shipments of netbooks worldwide in 2009, with 139 million expected to sell in 2013.
As netbooks grow in popularity, wireless providers are eager to feed the demand. Because of their spartan features, netbooks require Web access to handle even basic tasks, which can translate into a new set of data customers for wireless providers. “Data revenues are over 25 percent of our total revenue,” Simon said.
AT&T began selling subsidized netbooks to its wireless subscribers last…