Netbooks Bring The End Of Software CDs

Chance Stevens 7 November 2008 45 views View Comments

First there was the EPROM, you’d put them on the circuit board and it contained the instructions needed to run a program. They are still used today, but they were replaced by floppy disks as the media for distribution to consumers. Floppy disk lasted a while with programs such as Windows 95 coming on a series of 14 disks.

Floppy disks were joined with the LS120 Superdrive, the ZIP and JAZZ drives. Life was good, the air was crisp and tomorrow never seemed like it was going to happen. The problem was that ZIP drives weren’t cheap and they weren’t included with every computer. It also didn’t help that floppy disks were limited to 1.44MB, LS120 disks capped out at 120MB, and Zip disks only went up to 100MB.

The CD came with much fan fare because it carried at least 650MB, with capacity increasing to 700MB. This was enough to pack Windows 2000, Windows Millenium, and Windows XP on a single disc. While there are DVDs, and even Blu Ray which makes CDs seem antiquated, none of this matters when it comes to netbooks.

Netbooks don’t have a media drive. This means that software distribution will have three models.

-Downloadable content: Just imagine an iTunes for every pieces of software available. The downside is that you can only get to the software when you’re connected to the internet and while many people will undoubtedly connect to the internet at some point it makes it difficult if you’re in an area without reception to get broadband access.

-Distribution via USB drive: This seems to make the most sense. Drives are available all the way up to 32GB which make the smaller 1GB drive pennies to use. This would pave the way for software vending machines instead of aisles being taken up in stores. CompUSA tried a similar program that used a CD burner and it didn’t work very well. USB is almost everywhere, with the latest sewing machines being equipped with USB ports to plug in designs and update firmware.

-Distribution via SD card: This isn’t much different from USB drives except that SD readers aren’t ubiquitous in electronics today. Capacity isn’t as high, making it more expensive for a company to provide software this way.

Ultimately, you shouldn’t be surprised if Windows 7 is available on DVD as well as USB drive. Most BIOS’ can boot from external USB drives. I just know that they will need to make lanyards mandatory or people will be losing their software left and right.

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