Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
The flaw of looking at sells growth is that you see tremendous growth going from selling 100 units to 500 units, but don't see much growth going from 1,000,000 units going to 1,000,400 units. And of course, we are talking about a couple of analyst projections, rather than real numbers. The mini tablet market is a bit of a niche market, and I can certainly see big phones eat into that market. I would be very surprised if the combo tablet-laptop ever becomes a big percentage, it's too heavy to use as a tablet and not nearly as powerful as a regular laptop. It's mostly a niche device.
|
If it's a niche device, it's a very large niche.
I can see a significant portion of company bought laptaps moving to these convertibles, for the very fact that they are convertible. You can move from using them flat in meetings (everyone hiding behind their laptop screens is annoying), you can use them as a laptop when more convenient. And since a lot of laptops are attached to external screens in the office, the convertibleness is a non-factor in that use.
This, coupled with the relatively low cost, and decent specs, will start to drive businesses to these convertibles.
And since most business really don't care what their people are running (spec wise, not device wise), any under-specage isn't really a problem. For example, a Surface 3 is more powerful than the 4-5 year old laptops one of my client's people are issued.
In fact, if I was looking for a laptop replacement (I'm not, my 6 year old Dell is barely sufficient), I would be getting a Surface 3 (or equivalent). Why would I want to be locked into a laptop form factor?
And the trend of the rate of sales is important, it's how you plan for the future.