Tablets Killing Netbook Sales, Microsoft Exec Says
We've heard it before: Tablets are killing the netbook. But the consensus is growing. The latest addition comes from a Microsoft executive who said netbook sales have been "cannibalized" by tablets.
In an interview with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, general manager of Windows product management Gavriella Schuster said "[Netbooks] are definitely getting cannibalized … these are really a second device. But they are getting cannibalized."
Schuster referred to the recent rise of the iPad and the soon-to-be-released Android tablets as the culprit of falling sales. It makes sense given that tablets are generally priced about the same as netbooks, but with the recent popularity of app computing they seem like a more attractive buy.
The cannibalization of netbooks would obviously worry Microsoft because the large majority of them run Windows, and the company won't have an iPad-competitive tablet operating system on the market until next year.
It's not the first time we've heard this lament , and it probably won't be the last. At least we can enjoy the humor in bewailing cannibalized netbook sales when it was just a couple years ago manufacturers were complaining the netbook was cannibalizing laptop sales. Apple, for instance, must be laughing all the way to the bank.
