Dell is getting very excited about the new smart devices and expects to launch their upcoming netbooks with Chrome OS. The company is researching the pros and cons of building new Linux-based smartbooks, Dell´s senior product marketing manager for Linux clients, Todd Finch stated last week.
Smartbooks are similar to netbooks, ie small and handy, but also sporting cramped keyboards and small screens. They were basically meant for people checking their mail etc on the go, not as serious competition for laptops.
Todd Finch talked about Dell´s new plans at the OpenSourceWorld conference in San Francisco:
“The target market for smartbooks will be no different from Linux-based netbooks as they both have the same usage scenario. Like smartbooks, Linux-based netbooks are targeted at those looking for quick access to Web-based applications.The more [Web-based] applications there are, the better it is for Linux,”.
No major PC company has so far shown much of an interest in smartbooks, though small vendors are presenting them as a cheap alternative to netbooks, which are mostly based on Intel’s Atom chips and come with Microsoft’s Windows OS. Smartbooks run on chips designed by Arm. Their major advantage is their longer battery life.
Dell will also offer Ubuntu OS and Windows XP.
