AMD No Immediate Plans to Enter Tablet Market
AMD apparently is taking the wait-and-see approach before jumping on the tablet bandwagon.
Friday in an interview with InsideHW, AMD Vice President Leslie Sobon said that the company has no immediate plans for supporting a tablet PC, answering recent questions regarding its stance on the emerging iPad-charged market. Specifically, Sobon was asked if the Ontario platform could be used in the netbook and tablet sector, running a Microsoft-based OS.
"When you have around fifteen percent of market share, I think that the best way to serve your shareholders is to go after market share in your own market," Sobon said. "I think that we are looking upon tablets as we were looking upon netbooks. The only way for our competitor to grow is to grow the market, while as for us, we can grow by taking share on the mature markets."
As for the Ontario platform, Sobon said that AMD is in a good position to grab a share of the netbook market. "Frankly, “netbook” isn’t a good description anymore, since now, as you’ve seen, netbooks can do everything notebook can, but in a small form factor, and you no longer have to force that mobility and graphics trade-off," Sobon added.
AMD could eventually move into the tablet market, but only when its proven successful. Currently Apple's iPad is the only "slam-dunk" tablet, with the rest of the herd ready to stampede the market by the end of the year. Still, as Sobon points out, netbooks aren't as "sexy" as tablets, yet over 300 million will be sold this year alone.
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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Marco925 though their plans carry the least risk, they also provide less returns when other companies already are on the bandwagon.Reply -
cmartin011 i hope at least they focus to beat intel to the punch for next few years in the desktop and HPC and nvidia in GPU businessReply -
gekko668 No pain no gain but in this case I guess AMD doesn't have that much cash laying around to invest into other marketReply -
nforce4max >:|Reply
Damn I was hoping to see AMD enter this market to bring more competition and they offer great chipsets to the table as well low power graphics. -
Tom's, any chance you might cover AMD's showing of Zacate/Ontario this week? You guys neglected to do any real reviewing of Danube after it was released, hopefully you won't do the same with Zacate/Ontario. AMD released some rather impressive videos of Zacate vs. an Intel Core i5 laptop, Zacate was the clear winner in that exchange...Reply
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TeKEffect I'm a desktop person myself so I'm happy to see them continuing to push those technologies forward, especially ATI. But it seems every year or 6 months for that matter, mobile devices are becoming the standard. Laptops already out sell desktops. Tablets and cell phones seems to be where all the growth is. Wouldn't u want a piece of that rather than just going after market share in a shrinking market?Reply -
falchard The tablet market will continue to flounder without AMD in it quite honestly. Nothing coming out has a competitive graphics platform that only AMD and nVidia can offer.Reply -
eddieroolz I also think it would be better for AMD to concentrate in a few key areas. I applaud their decision.Reply