Are netbooks hurting laptop sales? It’s certainly an interesting question to ponder. There is definitely a segment of the existing “mainstream” (I hate that word these days, but it’s appropriate here) laptop market that would either benefit from a netbook / sub-notebook, or at the least not be impacted if they moved to a netbook type of device. That is, the work they do does not require 4GB of memory and the latest graphics and dual-core CPUs.
PC World has written an article that looks into this, as well as AMD’s on-again/off-again netbook CPU offering:
“We haven’t announced anything for this type of cheap mini-notebook and we’re still taking this wait-and-see attitude,” said Pat Moorhead, AMD’s vice president of advanced marketing.
“The fact that there are a number of models coming out might give the indication that [the market is] growing and everybody wants to do this, but what’s interesting is you pull back the covers and talk to people in the industry and they’re kind of scared,” he said.
That fear stems from a concern that netbook sales will undermine sales of more powerful machines.
Of course, with the success of Intel’s Atom CPU, Intel is looking it from a different perspective (i.e. good for the market, as long as they limit the hardware).
It’s a good article and brings up a lot of valid points.
Read: PC World