Microsoft thinks it might be. In reporting record revenues, the software giant buried 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 conk the Linux-based netbook. But isn’t it in Microsoft’s best stake to see the netbook fade away, regardless?
Patrick Moorhead, a former corporate fellow with AMD and directly principal 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 productions similar 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. Merely what’s earn is that consumers loved the price point, only wanted more for their money.
“In the end, and I have been identical earn on this since daytime one, is that netbooks are merely inexpensive notebooks that became popular,” Moorhead said. “They got replaced by higher-quality notebooks that were fulfilled by a selfsame like cost and post in the market.”
According to Moorhead, the next of the netbook isn’t the tablet, equally Acer seemed to imply with its decision to throw its lid into the tablet market lastly year. Instead, the future is something like 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.
