Netbook sales negative, laptops down 50%
Silicon Alley Insider is reporting on the iPad Effect: netbook sales are negative as of August. Also, the Best Buy CEO says the iPad is cannibalizing laptop sales by 50%. Seems that people like the tablet idea.
An important technology shift is happening, and this is especially challenging for commodity hardware companies like Dell and HP, and their operating system vendor, Microsoft. The Windows PC market isn’t going away anytime soon, but the lightweight, instant-on tablet model is proving to be a winner for people who don’t need a device that does a thousand things — and there are millions of people in that category.
I’m interested to see what this shift will produce in the next couple of years. We can expect a surge of technical innovation like we haven’t seen in a long time, and the competition should be great for individuals and businesses alike: improvements in hardware and software engineering, industrial design, user experience, device performance, networking, application development — it’s about to get interesting.
Filed under: Apple, Competition Tags: ipad, netbook | No Comments »
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