Chris Henley is a fun and energetic representative of Microsoft. He works on the Developer Platform Evangelist team at Microsoft as an IT Professional Evangelist in the western region and is the co-author of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Administration Instant Reference from Sybex press. Chris is a regular speaker and presenter at user groups, Technet events, and major conferences around the US.
He has extensive experience in the world of computer networks. He is passionate about the way that technology helps people. He has an entertaining and insightful style of communicating technical information and of making difficult concepts easy to understand. He is an expert in server architecture and network design. He loves to push the envelope of what we think about computers, and what software can do. Chris spends his spare time playing XBOX360 with his wife and kids, fly fishing, camping, hiking, and searching for the best chocolate cake on planet earth.
I am very interested in what is happening with the hardware we would traditionally use to run the Windows client operating systems. Acer, HP, Lenovo and Dell have all made entries into the Netbook workspace with mini-laptops that run the Atom processor. They have 8 to 10 inch screens, a mid sized internal hard drive, and little to no internal accessories. Accessories are run as external add-ons. I like these boxes in theory but in practice there is one huge drawback for me. I really don't like a screen that small. What I would really like is a bare bones machine with internal Wi-Fi card, an internal Broadband/SIM card slot, and a traditional gigabit ethernet card, all with a screen that is 13 inch HD wide screen. While we are at it we should throw in HD sound and great video card.
Enter the Dell Adamo. I don't own it yet. but I am in negotiations to get one. It has all of my wants and my needs in a super slim sexy package. If the functionality is as good as the marketing then this machine could be my future.
I do have some hesitation on the machine at present. Cost! I realize we are talking state of the art hardware but the pricing is pretty high in comparison to the net book market at large. With that said I don't know that Dell is thinking of this as a competitor in that marketplace. Either way I think this device meets my future needs.
For those of you who are thinking ugh... so how is it going to do with Windows 7? I have 2 words for you, No Problem! More on that later.