Netbook Sales Sag as the iPad Arrives - BusinessWe

Netbook Sales Sag as the iPad Arrives The revenue development with the mini-laptops has fallen sharply as customers eye a lot more able transportable computer systems
By
Cliff Edwards

Apple's (AAPL) iPad is helping cool the computer industry's netbook fever. Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has created no top secret of his disdain for your well-liked,Office 2007 Professional Product Key, affordable mini-notebooks. "Netbooks aren't better than anything. They're just cheap laptops," Employment said at the Jan. 27 launch in the iPad tablet computer in San Francisco.

PC makers are starting to worry that consumers agree. The revenue development of netbooks, priced from $200 to $500 and resembling shrunk-down laptops, slowed markedly in the first quarter,Hp windows7 ultimate bluetooth driver at PTF, according to market researcher IDC.

Netbook shipments to retailers from January through March are expected to grow 33.6% compared with a year ago, to 4.8 million units, IDC says. That's significantly slower progress than in the first quarter of 2009, when netbook revenue leapt 872%, to 3.6 million units. "Everyone tried to make these mini-notebooks out to be a different category, or different type of device," says IDC analyst Richard Shim. "In fact, people think of them as just another type of PC."

Falling revenue aren't the only problem dogging netbooks. There's evidence that demand for netbook components is declining. The Web site DigiTimes reported on Mar. 30 that makers from the liquid-crystal-display panels used in netbooks are cutting production because of declining orders. PC makers including Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Dell (DELL), and Acer declined to comment on whether inventories of unsold netbooks are on the rise.
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Susie Ramirez, a spokeswoman for Intel,Office 2010 Standard 64 Bit, which makes the Atom chip used in most netbooks,Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus, declined to say whether PC makers are ordering fewer of the chips. "Things change quarter to quarter, but in the end we're looking at hundreds of millions of netbooks that will be sold over time,Key Office 2010," she says.

Some PC makers are starting to look past the category and divine what will next capture consumers' attention in the moveable computer market. Michael Abary, senior vice-president of Sony's (SNE) Information Products Technology Div., which makes Vaio-branded desktops, laptops, and netbooks, says the mini-laptops are "losing [their] novelty. Everyone is trying to figure out what's next, now that we realize [sales are] not going to continue to grow at an astronomical rate."

Sales of netbooks, which became well-known among American consumers in 2008, exploded as recession-battered shoppers opted for the cheap but less able laptops. When many people got them home,Windows 7 Home Basic Sale, they were disappointed by flimsy keyboards, unfamiliar operating systems, and a lack of programs that could be run on the machines.