Acer Says It Has No Plans to Phase out Netbooks

Acer on Wednesday in a statement said that it has no plans to phase out netbooks as it increases its focus on tablets.

The company also said that it does not foresee tablets based on Sandy Bridge processors, contrary to comments made earlier this week by an Acer sales manager in Taiwan.

Lu Bing-hsian earlier this week told the IDG News Service that Acer would begin selling new tablet PCs in the first half of this year as it gradually phases out netbooks and that tablets would come with processors based on Intel's Sandy Bridge microarchitecture.

"For the moment it is not foreseen yet ... devices based on Sandy Bridge," Acer said.

Acer said the range of devices available to users is expanding and that tablets "will find their space next to netbooks and notebooks, without taking over."

Acer in November announced new tablets with 5-inch, 7-inch and 10-inch screens running on Google's Android operating system, which were also shown at the recent Consumer Electronics Show. The company also showed a tablet with a 10-inch screen running Windows 7. The company reiterated the launch plans of those devices in the statement.

The growing craze around tablet shipments has hurt PC shipments, especially netbooks, research firm IDC said last week. PC shipments for Acer, which was one of the top netbook vendors, declined year over year by 15 percent during the fourth quarter.

IDC in a separate study said that worldwide tablet shipments totaled 4.8 million in last year's third quarter. IDC is projecting 2010 tablet shipments to total 17 million units, with 44.6 million shipping in 2011.

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Netbooks Not Dead Yet

This week, a spate of stores reported that an Acer sales executive had predicted the slow death of netbooks as tablets take off. Some took the news as an opportunity to tap-dance on the netbook's grave. But now Acer is saying that it was all a big misunderstanding.

Here's a bit of a statement the company released after those initial reports, under the title "Acer NOT phasing out netbooks in favor of tablet:"

Mobility, which has always been part of Acer's DNA, finds a new form of expression in the range of tablets on offer, which feature various display sizes and models designed to fit different kinds of usage scenarios. Acer recognizes that the computer market is changing. As PCs are no longer only used to create content but are more and more becoming consumption tools, new devices and new form factors are appearing.

This means the range of devices available to users is getting wider and tablets are just another piece of the mosaic. Therefore, they will find their space next to netbooks and notebooks.

One of the things I like about Acer is that its executives are sometimes startlingly honest (when it came to the fiasco known as Windows Vista, CEO Gianfranco Lanci didn't mince words). So I suspect that the Acer honcho quoted in the original stories wasn't misquoted -- and that if his point was that tablets will cut into netbook sales, he's right.

But I can't see tablets killing netbooks -- which are, let's remind ourselves, nothing more than a type of notebook that happens to be small, cheap, and (usually) not exactly bursting with high-performance components. There's a place for them, just as there's a place for cars that are small, cheap, and not exactly bursting with high-performance components. And even if netbooks are no longer sexy -- and hey, they lost their luster a long time ago -- I suspect they'll be on the market for years to come. Maybe even after some companies which are currently jumping into the tablet market decide to jump back out of it again.

Pundits and industry types love to predict the demise of netbooks; pundits and industry types keep underestimating their appeal. I'm pleased with my iPad, but if I were required by law to own only one computing device, and was forced to choose between an iPad and an Acer netbook, I'd go with the Acer -- at least until Apple introduces an iPad with a keyboard. Which it won't.

How about you?

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