OLPC showed that it was possible; before that companies didn't seem to be interested in seeing if they could. True netbooks never amounted to much, but they did

OLPC showed that it was possible; before that companies didn't seem to be interested in seeing if they could. True netbooks never amounted to much, but they did show that there existed a market for basically a consumption device (web browser and movie-watcher). Which the iPad took up and make much more usable.