Acer is prognosticating again – hide the babies and keep your tin-foil hats firmly in place. The netbook maker’s chairman now expects Apple’s Mac sales will run out of steam by 2014, deflated by Intel’s ultrabook. This after diagnosing overwhelming tablet demand as a “fever” and the iPad slipping in popularity. Kreskin need not be worried — and neither should Apple.
Despite being caught in Apple’s vise-like iPad and MacBook Air grip, Acer continues on with the belief there must be a market somewhere remaining for netbooks – maybe China. Monday, the head of the company’s China operations said “emerging markets” could boost vanishing profits. On Monday, the head of the company’s China operations said “emerging markets” could boost vanishing profits. In other words, everyone else may think netbooks suck, but they’re still good enough for those third-world citizens who don’t know any better.
Acer, the company that saw the iPad devour its Netbook market, is whistling past the graveyard again. This time, the Taiwan-based PC maker forecasts consumers will turn from tablets to Ultrabooks in 2012. Such talk could go into the same category of the Mayan calendar foreshadowing the end of the world.
It’s a sickness, this desire for iPads. That’s the diagnosis of the head of Acer, the netbook maker that has had the stuffing kicked out of it by, um, the iPad. But don’t fret, the Acer chairman says this tablet “fever” consumers have contracted will break.
Acer founder Stan Shih has opened his mouth and said something extraordinarily stupid: the ultrabook and tablet form factors are nothing but a stupid fad with no future. Someone should tell Apple that, so they can stop selling iPads and MacBook Airs to a throng of millions of excited customers.
PC executives have seen their profits and marketshare so decimated by iPad that they now having to make the ultimate sacrifice: slightly smaller bonuses.
First, Apple takes Acer to the woodshed over netbooks, now the PC maker takes a bruising for demanding a lady-sized 7-inch tablet. They’ve just figured out what Apple has known all along: the iPad’s the perfect size for a tablet.
Apple is still yet to announce an official launch date for the iPad 2 in Taiwan, but some sources are claiming the device is set to hit the country before the month is out, while Android tablets in the country are suffering from its delay.
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