Acer: Tablets, ultrabooks a Short-Term Phenomena
Acer is calling on fellow notebook manufacturers to take Apple's "outside-of-the-box" approach to innovation. Tablets are nothing more than a fad, too.
Friday Acer founder Stan Shih described the current excitement over both Ultrabooks and tablets as "fads" and "short-term phenomena," and urged fellow notebook manufacturers to produce more value-added products through innovation. This means possibly taking Apple's approach when it came to designing the original iPad: using an "outside-of-the-box" approach.
According to DigiTimes, someone during a news conference commented that by bringing the iPhone and iPad into the PC sector, Apple is essentially competing with other PC manufacturers and creating a great impact on the overall demand for PCs. Shih responded by saying that PCs are still the base of the IT industry, and that tablets are developed from this base. That said, future products will still need to go through the PC platform "to create even more add-on value."
Despite a call to arms, Acer still intends to ride the tablet wave. Shih admitted that consumers want products with low prices and tons of convenience, and each player in the tablet sector needs to accept this fact. He said that current competition within the tablet market is "still on track for positive development."
Back in June, Acer reportedly slashed its full-year shipment target for tablets by almost 60-percent. Chairman J.T. Wang told reporters after a shareholder meeting that the new target for tablet shipments this year was 2.5 to 3 million units – originally Acer planned for 5 to 7 million units at the beginning of the year. 800,000 tablets are expected to be sold in each of the second and third quarters.
Back in April Acer said that it will "aggressively yet cautiously develop data-consumption products, tablet PCs and smartphones based on the solid foundation of the main PC business." The news arrived after Acer's board of directors appointed Jim Wong as corporate president.
Though, seriously, I hope he's right. Hate it when people say that tablets and ultrabooks are the future.
I agree to a point. I think Ultrabooks "might" take the seat of netbooks, but tablets I believe are here to stay. Tablets might be just amp'd up smartphones, but if the business and consumer markets start to develop a cloud/onlive type approach to using them for even big tasks(where all the processing and etc, are done in the cloud) and the end results are then pumped to the device(which, as far as I can tell would be mostly limited on latency, signal strength, and bandwidth.) Provided those were all at acceptable levels.. Alot of people would no longer need much of anything else.
Played right, and with the right technological steps in invention and innovation.. This could be awesome, and Acer dead wrong.
However.. the current Lawyer/Patent problem will probably cripple any progress down to a trickle.. I'd be surprised to see any amount of "significant" change for the better for years to come...
One OS for both phone and tablets (Ice Cream Sandwich) will help app development. I expect Tablets to slowly but steadily make it into homes. Once you've used one for a while, you realize how versatile these little suckers are, and this is only the first generation. Since most seem to be settling into the sub $500 price point now, more people will start looking at them.
Why not make a laptop that has an i7 processor with all the bells and whistles in the keboard part, even if it is a little bulkier, and attach a 12.1 inch android tablet to it. The screen would be also protected, no need for jackets.
This way you have all your data with you, can do real work too. Also have the convenience of using only the tablet part when reading, surfing or emailing.
and it then make it so you can run multiple tablets at your home, instead of 1 PC per person. I have two monitors set up for my PC and I wished i can add another mouse and keyboard so me and nephew could use the same PC at the same time. Why don't they make something like this possible?
Damn, I should patent this idea!
There's a tool that let you do that though I don't remember the name (Anyone?) Or if your PC is powerful enough just use a VM with its own K/M and monitor for the other person.
Yeah... the future of today, but desktops are, and will always be the future of tomorrow!
Do people really care what YOU have to say?
A lame reason. They also had spacecrafts... should we start building spacecrafts instead of dealing with this planet's problems first, then?
Tablets might stay because they're entertaining toys, but that's about it. All this talk about them becoming powerful devices that'll control everything is utter garbage. Make a super-fast CPU for them using some new smaller process - PC will take the advantage of the same new process and also gain new CPUs, dozens of times more powerful. Can you upgrade your tablet when it gets old? No? Thought so.
Though, who needs upgrading if the only thing most people do is Angry Birds.
The PC world has the absolute best options available for creating, yes creating the best products on the market.
If you want your products to sell, get Innovative, Aggressive, and have a Desire to be the best.
PC components are vast and powerful.
I know the PC world and Acer, ASUS, and all of the PC component and PC makers can take back their ground. They just need their own brew of Cool-Aid to woo the consumer and make their tummies want it!
It's gonna happen too, this battle is way far from over.
LOL XD