Netbooks will change the industry! Can anyone say Free Laptop!
I have been in the wireless industry about 14 years and I believe that Netbooks will change the tide of the industry. I don't think that Dell and HP can move enough of their product through traditional channels. We will change the way that they do business. I have been telling my guys for the last few months that Netbooks will Rock the industry as we know it. Verizon has announced that they will have a netbook in their lineup as soon as the end of June. I do believe that it will be the hottest thing that VZ offers this Holiday season, except maybe the Storm 2 with wifi. So if you are like me you are wondering how this will be priced. Well I can't answer that, but I will tell you what I discovered on my recent trip to Australia. When ...
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Whoopty duda!
Here in the UK Carphone Wherehouse has been doing the free laptop thing for a long time. Its nothing new if anything it makes wireless sales harder from a reps point of view. Its cool that the laptop has built in aircard but when the dam thing dies it normaly takes longer to fix the computer.
Not to mention network carrier branded laptop will be outdated by the time the contract is up if not broken or have windows crash.
I know RadioShack is the first retailer in the USA to be selling the Acer laptop on ATT. I have a freind that works for an ATT corp store who hates when custies come on with them since they cant tech support them yet.
When I worked for Sprint back when 3G first came out they billed it as the new w...
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Here in the UK Carphone Wherehouse has been doing the free laptop thing for a long time. Its nothing new if anything it makes wireless sales harder from a reps point of view. Its cool that the laptop has built in aircard but when the dam thing dies it normaly takes longer to fix the computer.
Not to mention network carrier branded laptop will be outdated by the time the contract is up if not broken or have windows crash.
I know RadioShack is the first retailer in the USA to be selling the Acer laptop on ATT. I have a freind that works for an ATT corp store who hates when custies come on with them since they cant tech support them yet.
When I worked for Sprint back when 3G first came out they billed it as the new w...
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I've been eagerly waiting for this product to come out, as well as someone to talk about it on PhoneScoop.
I don't presume to know how well this will go over. Nadesico81 tells us that it's not that big of a deal with our cousins over in the UK. They're sold in other parts of the world already, but I'm not aware of their popularity in those places.
Before I worked in wireless, I worked in computers for over a decade. I was an early computer geek in the mid-80s. I've seen a lot of stuff in the computer industry. After 20 years of selling or tinkering with computers and technology, I think I'm safe in saying the computer industry has been on a plateau as of late. I recently purchased two computers, a laptop and a desktop, for some o...
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I don't presume to know how well this will go over. Nadesico81 tells us that it's not that big of a deal with our cousins over in the UK. They're sold in other parts of the world already, but I'm not aware of their popularity in those places.
Before I worked in wireless, I worked in computers for over a decade. I was an early computer geek in the mid-80s. I've seen a lot of stuff in the computer industry. After 20 years of selling or tinkering with computers and technology, I think I'm safe in saying the computer industry has been on a plateau as of late. I recently purchased two computers, a laptop and a desktop, for some o...
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I do agree with your remarks regarding tech support. We are no means capable of dealing with the computer tech problems of every customer that walks in with a software and hardware problems, but I am sure that will have to change. That is if we are going to stay up with supporting our current and future customers. We may have to put a computer "Geek Squad" tech in each one of our stores. At least maybe we could charge for their services. Best Buy does. Cellular Carriers need to sell data + Computer Companies need to sell hardware = a match made in Internet bliss. I know that our UK cousins have and have had these things for a while, but Americans do everything in excess. I can see this escalating to where every member of the family h...
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The wireless industry tends to redefine a product. The best examples are PDAs. It's relatively hard to find a regular PDA these days because smartphones (wireless PDAs) took over that market. In a sense, the modern PDA phone is nothing more than the evolved version of the "Palm Pilot."
I don't think it's any stretch of the imagination to see the laptop industry redefined by the wireless industry, just like the PDA industry was. As more and more laptops come with wireless broadband connections - systems like Gobi - and as wireless technology improve, only the desktop will really need a traditional wired/fibered Internet solution (and even that could change).
Humans, especially those in the 1st world nations, are increasingly looki...
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I don't think it's any stretch of the imagination to see the laptop industry redefined by the wireless industry, just like the PDA industry was. As more and more laptops come with wireless broadband connections - systems like Gobi - and as wireless technology improve, only the desktop will really need a traditional wired/fibered Internet solution (and even that could change).
Humans, especially those in the 1st world nations, are increasingly looki...
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Tech Support?
How bout reformatting for every problem the customer comes in with. Just gotta tell them they need to back up their data first or its all gone. Oh don't have a way to do that? We sell flash drives!
How bout reformatting for every problem the customer comes in with. Just gotta tell them they need to back up their data first or its all gone. Oh don't have a way to do that? We sell flash drives!
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it really won't take off because none of the carriers will offer unlimited data. 5Gb is just not enough for the target market. if they could do truly unlimited or even 50GB something that won't cause the overage then it may work. for now i don't see it catching on...
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"unlimited" data will come when data either becomes cheaper, or or companies find a way to effectively stop people from using programs like torrents, that use whatever bandwidth they can.
Look for more "unlimited" like plans under LTE
as for higher cap limits on 3g, expect to see that with the launch of these devices.
The problem is that wireless internet is currently expensive, and when you can get "unlimited" dsl for under 30 a month, a lot of customers don't understand that wireless internet will be more expensive, or have some limits on it because it's inherently different from a hard line connection using existing infrastructure. Prices will go down, or limits will go up, but getting "unlimited" data for as cheap as you can get...
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Look for more "unlimited" like plans under LTE
as for higher cap limits on 3g, expect to see that with the launch of these devices.
The problem is that wireless internet is currently expensive, and when you can get "unlimited" dsl for under 30 a month, a lot of customers don't understand that wireless internet will be more expensive, or have some limits on it because it's inherently different from a hard line connection using existing infrastructure. Prices will go down, or limits will go up, but getting "unlimited" data for as cheap as you can get...
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Uh, I don't know about what landline services you use but I've ran into issues where comcast put a cap on my account for excessive usage. My internet was horribly slow and I had to call in to request that cap be removed. Afterwards, I was flying again.
Guess you can't do 20 GB+ transfers within a month...
Guess you can't do 20 GB+ transfers within a month...
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landlines arn't unlimited either. most contracts have limits imposed, but they are a lot higher than 5gb.
My service is something stupid like 80gb. I MIGHT use 10gb a month, and that is if I rent a movie on itunes and download a patch or two for my games.
The cap was lowered for a lot of carriers recently because of people using programs to hog bandwidth for often (illegal) downloads.
Companies did a study and something like 10% of their customers used 60% of the bandwidth. Typically, the higher your package (the higher download speeds) the higher your cap. Companies are experimenting with perhaps tiers of caps. once they find a way to charge the heaviest users without affecting other customers, expect to see "basic" plans drop...
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My service is something stupid like 80gb. I MIGHT use 10gb a month, and that is if I rent a movie on itunes and download a patch or two for my games.
The cap was lowered for a lot of carriers recently because of people using programs to hog bandwidth for often (illegal) downloads.
Companies did a study and something like 10% of their customers used 60% of the bandwidth. Typically, the higher your package (the higher download speeds) the higher your cap. Companies are experimenting with perhaps tiers of caps. once they find a way to charge the heaviest users without affecting other customers, expect to see "basic" plans drop...
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My issues with netbooks...
--Not nearly as powerful as some full fledged laptops.
--How will verizon service these devices? That could get tricky.
--Size may be a little too small for some, 9 inches just isn't that big (thats what she said 🙂
--you are going to have to pay for a $60 dollar a month data plan on top of your normal bill. Or atleast the $30 tethering add on.
Netbooks are pretty cool devices and they definitely have their niche. But I think some major changes will need to be made before they really catch on as carrier supported devices.
Just my thoughts...
Chris
--Not nearly as powerful as some full fledged laptops.
--How will verizon service these devices? That could get tricky.
--Size may be a little too small for some, 9 inches just isn't that big (thats what she said 🙂
--you are going to have to pay for a $60 dollar a month data plan on top of your normal bill. Or atleast the $30 tethering add on.
Netbooks are pretty cool devices and they definitely have their niche. But I think some major changes will need to be made before they really catch on as carrier supported devices.
Just my thoughts...
Chris
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I think some of you are missing the point. Verizon is already in the process of signing a deal to offer these within the next 60 to 90 days. I think the Netbook is just the beginning. There is no reason that we can not offer a fully loaded laptop. The bigger issue here is these will be the first(ok I know at@t has something out also) subsidized laptops in the US. I believe people will pay attention to a laptop or netbook that is offered for free or almost free with Internet built in. I wonder how many Iphones and Storms we would sell if we offered them at full cost to our consumers? The computer industry is already predicting that netbooks will make up a huge piece of their market shares by 2012. More and more applications are becomi...
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so do you think agents will get this? im still waiting to be changed to VZW. also in the midwest
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There has been nothing official but I think we will. It's on our rebate pads, we got store signage, and there is information about it on InfoCenter.
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