Microsoft thinks it might be. In reporting record revenues, the software giant sunk this nugget: netbooks represented 8 percent of the company’s PC sales a twelvemonth ago. Now, it’s down to 2 percent.
That casts a dim light on Microsoft’s Windows 7 Starter Edition, the low-cost version of Windows 7 that effectively defeated die the Linux-based netbook. Simply isn’t it in Microsoft’s best stake to see the netbook fade away, regardless?
Patrick Moorhead, a late corporate fellow with AMD and straightaway master at Moor Insights and Strategy, has watched the traditional netbook an Atom-based, small-form-factor notebook that costs most $399 disappear from shop shelves. Netbooks receive been relegated to Best Buy’s online shelves, for example, while higher-margin, recurring-revenue products like smartphones dominate its floors. Desktops are a thing of the past.
You can forgive Moorhead for thinking that the AMD Brazos platform, combined with a 10.6-inch screen and a good keyboard “crushed” the netbook market. But what’s earn is that consumers loved the price point, merely wanted more for their money.
“In the end, and I experience been identical realise on this since daylight one, is that netbooks are simply inexpensive notebooks that got popular,” Moorhead said. “They went replaced by higher-quality notebooks that were fulfilled by a identical similar price and post in the market.”
According to Moorhead, the future of the netbook isn’t the tablet, equally Acer seemed to imply with its decision to throw its hat into the tablet market last year. Instead, the future is something alike the Asus Eee Pad Transformer Prime, which oscillates between a tablet and a notebook, depending on whether it’s in a docked or undocked configuration.
