ARM predicts that netbooks will soon hold a 90% share of the PC market

Netbooks have grown in popularity by a great deal during 2009, as the economic recession has prompted consumers to opt for mobile computing solutions that are cost-accessible, even despite their performance limitations. This has led to a strong increase in this market segment and the share of netbooks is expected to keep growing over the following years. ARM, although it has not yet seen many design wins in this area, believes that netbooks will keep growing until they hold 90% of the entire PC market

"Although netbooks are small today – maybe ten per cent of the PC market at most – we believe over the next several years that could completely change around and that could be 90 per cent of the PC market," the ARM CEO, Mr. Warren East, says. "We see those products as an area for a lot of innovation and we want that innovation to be happening around the ARM architecture."

Intel and Advanced Micro Devices are the best known players on the CPU market, mainly because of the high power of x86 chips and their support for Microsoft Windows. The mobile front, however, is dominated by ARM circuitry, as they have a much lower power consumption than x86 chips, which makes them ideal for handsets and consumer electronics. The netbook market is the closest to ARM's territory and the company seems bent on grabbing a fair share of it for itself.
The 90% of the PC market share that Warren East sees for netbooks will supposedly come soon, according to an interview with PC Pro. The ARM chief executive believes that ARM chips will begin to score netbook-design wins even despite the lack of Windows support, thanks to the rapid evolution of the Linux OS.

"What’s holding it back is people’s love of the Microsoft operating system and that fact that it’s familiar and so on. But actually the trajectory of progress in the Linux world is very, very impressive. I think it’s only a matter of time for ARM to gain market share with or without Microsoft."

"Microsoft knows us very well, it’s worked with us for the past 12 years, all its mobile products are based on ARM," he adds. "It’s really an operational decision for Microsoft to make. I don’t think there’s any major technical barriers. Microsoft’s well aware of the technical support we can provide to them, but it is an operational challenge for them, and one that only they can work out. We can’t really help them with it."

East says that ARM controllers are already being used in netbook components, but that the company hopes to see its CPUs at the helm of mobile PCs, so that the architecture can grow along with the netbook market.

"Right now there’s only one microprocessor in the PC that probably isn’t ARM and that’s the applications processor. Certainly what we’re talking about over the next few years – particularly with netbooks, not with PCs – is the opportunity for those to be ARM."

Currently, the demand for notebooks and desktops with computing, gaming and multimedia capabilities render this 90% prediction rather unrealistic. Still, time will tell how well netbooks will perform and if ARM chips will finally start powering such devices on a wide scale.

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