You know Asus, the Taiwan based company that gave us the first ever Netbook? Of course you do.
Only just over two years ago none of us could have foreseen the impact that the Asus Eee PC netbook would have on the computer industry, except for maybe Asus of course.
How could we possibly have known back then that cheap little Netbooks would become so popular? I mean they weren’t even like real laptops were they; basically all you could do was surf the net and write some emails. How wrong could we be?
So, whilst others stood back and laughed, Asus had the last laugh of all as they managed to sell more than a million of these little machines in only four months and sparked off a global Netbook war.
Pretty soon just about every computer company bar Apple rushed to get out their version of the ultraportable device.
So given that Asus had the foresight not to mention the guts to release the first Netbook, it would be interesting to hear what they think the future holds for the computer industry.
Asus Chairman Jonney Shih in an interview with Nick Heath from Silicon.com was giving his views on where the PC is going next.
First, according to Shih, it’s not the right time for the tablet PC because it won’t take off until there are plenty of easily accessible online stores supplying games, books, music and videos tailored for the tablet.
“We have those kind of devices in our labs but we are watching to see when this is enabled” he said.
Shih also said that Asus have netbooks and Smartbooks running on both Android and Chrome operating systems in their research and development labs but are waiting until the conditions are right to release them too.
However, what’s really interesting is Shih’s take on future technologies.
He believes that portable devices we have today like Netbooks and Smartbooks will be superseded in maybe five years time by wearable devices much like the Waveface concept machine Asus recently displayed at the CES in Las Vegas.
Shih thinks there will be a change in computing itself and that companies will focus on more portable devices that are easier to use.
“I don’t believe that the PC will keep evolving from simply [having] four core processors, to eight core to 16 core” he said.
I think maybe Asus could surprise us all once again and I can’t wait to see what they come up with next.
