What is the most influential piece of personal technology of the past two years? Amazon’s Kindle? Apple’s iPhone? Research in Motion’s BlackBerry? All of these North American devices are worthy but my prize goes to the Asus Eee PC made by Asustek of Taiwan.
过去两年中最有影响力的一款个人科技产品是什么？是亚马逊的Kindle阅读器？苹果的 iPhone?还是RIM公司的黑莓？这些来自北美的设备都很不错,但在我看来，拔得头筹的是由台 湾企业华硕生产的Asus Eee PC。
Asustek came up with its small, light, cheap laptop computer known (misleadingly, it turns out) as a netbook in October 2007. Few analysts grasped the significance of the Eee because they did not think that people in the developed world would buy a not-very-powerful device with a tiny screen and a small keyboard. Meanwhile, US companies from Dell to Microsoft and Apple gazed studiously elsewhere.
2007年10月，华硕推出了体积小、重量轻的廉价笔记本电脑，即所谓的上网本(事实证明,这个 名称具有误导性)。很少有分析师从一开始就认识到Eee的与众不同，因为他们并不认为，发达国家的消费者会愿意购买这种性能不是很强大、屏幕和键盘都非常小的 设备。与此同时,从戴尔到微软和苹果,美国公司都把注意力投向了 其他地方。
Yet, nearly two years on, evidence of the Eee’s influence is everywhere. The Asus Eee, and rival netbooks made by Acer, another Taiwan company, have converted consumers and caused havoc in the personal computer industry, reducing revenues and margins at both software and hardware companies. Everyone except Apple has ended up following Asustek.
然而,近两年过后，Eee的影响力已变得无所不在。Asus Eee及另 一家台湾企业宏基生产的上网本,已经改变了消费者的观念在个人 电脑行业掀起了轩然大波——软、硬件公司的收入和利润率都有所 下降。除了苹果之外,所有公司最终都选择了效仿华硕。
This, however, leaves a question. If the netbook, now defined as a mini-notebook with a screen of up to 10 inches, costing between $ 300 and $ 600, weighing two or three pounds and usually running on Intel's Atom chip, is so appealing, why did it take so long to arrive?
但上述现象也留下了一个疑问。如果上网本——目前它被界定 为屏幕不超过10英寸、售价300至600美元、重2至3磅、通常采用英特 尔Atom芯片的迷你型笔记本电脑——如此吸引人,为什么它却如 此姗姗来迟？
One answer is that US companies made a mistake. “They thought that the performance was too low and people would not be interested in,” says Willy Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School who is in Taiwan this week to research the netbook phenomenon further.
一种解释是，美国公司犯了一个错误。哈佛商学院教授史兆威 表示:“他们认为上网本性能太低，人们不会感兴趣。”史兆威这周正 在台湾进一步研究上网本现象。
Early netbooks had limited memory and ran on Linux rather than Windows, but when the screens got larger (the first Eee only had a seven-inch screen) and Windows XP became the operating system they took off, aided by Inters launch of the Atom chip in March 2008.
早期的上网本内存有限，配置的操作系统是Linux,而非 Windows。但当上网本的屏幕变得更大（第一款Eee的屏幕只有7 英寸），并且改装Windows XP操作系统之后，它们开始风靡市场， 2008年3月英特尔推出的Atom芯片也为其助了一臂之力。
That is the innocent explanation; the more cynical one is that it took a long time because some companies preferred netbooks not to succeed. The three-way alliance among Microsoft, Intel and Dell instead preferred laptops to become more powerful and run on fancier versions of Windows.
上述解释比较天真。更具批判性的解释是，上网本的姗姗来迟是因为某些公司不愿意看到 它成功。微软、英特尔和戴尔所组成的3方联盟，更希望让笔记本变得更加强大，使用更花哨的 Windows 版本。
In revenue terms, this was a way of counteracting the price deflationary effects of Moore’s Law (along with the outsourcing of manufacturing to Taiwan and China), under which the cost of processing power, other things being equal, tends steadily to fall.
就收入而言，这是为了抵消摩尔定律(将制造流程外包给台湾和中国大陆)所导致的价格通缩效 应。根据摩尔定律,在其他因素保持不变的情况下，处理能力的成本倾向于稳步下降。
Personally, I always desired a cheap and light laptop with a long battery life and a decent keyboard that connected to the internet and performed basic tasks such as word processing, but it did not exist.
我个人一直渴望拥有这样一台笔记本电脑:轻巧廉价，电池寿命长,键盘足够大，能上网，能完 成文字处理等基本操作。但这类笔记本电脑以前并不存在。
It took Asustek to break the oligopoly’s grip by making what I and many others, it turns out wanted. As soon as it did, all the other computer makers, from Acer to Dell and HP, surrendered.
是华硕生产出了我想要(事实证明，其他许多人也想要）的产品，打破了寡头垒断。它一这样 做,从宏基到戴尔和惠普,所有其他电脑生产商都立即效仿。
This coincided with Microsoft’s moment of hubris with the bloated and troubled Windows Vista, which required lots of memory and a powerful chip. To beat off Linux, Microsoft had to let netbooks run Windows XP instead.
华硕推出上网本之际，微软正对Windows Vista感到洋洋得意。这个庞大而繁杂的操作系统 需要大量内存和性能强大的芯片。为了击退Linux，微软不得不摒弃Windows Vista,让上网本配 置Windows XP操作系统。
Microsoft and Intel are still trying to corral netbooks by defining them as a third type of device in addition to desktops and laptops. Intel popularized the term netbook and Microsoft sets strict memory and screen limits for licenses.
微软和英特尔仍在试图限制上网本的发展,将其定义为台式电脑和笔记本电脑以外的第三类设 备。英特尔令上网本这个词得到广为流传，而微软则为其授权制定了严格的内存和屏幕尺寸限制。
Consumers are not listening. A study in May found that netbook owners, far from regarding them as devices for connecting to the internet and little else，do not differentiate.
消费者并不买账。今年5月的一项研究显示,上网本所有者根本就不认为,它是一款只能上网、 鲜有其他功能的设备,而是将它与其他电脑一视同仁。
Consumers must have a choice for what they wanted. For providing it, the Asus Eee wins my prize.
消费者有权选择最适合自己的东西。鉴于Asus Eeeii供了这种选择，我眼中的冠军产品非它莫属。