No One's Buying Tablet Computers
from the because-it's-not-a-computer,-it's-a-feature dept
No surprise here, but the massively overhyped "tablet PCs" are not selling very well. I never understood the hype. Microsoft made a big push for them, when every other attempt at similar products had failed dismally. The problem isn't that the tablet PC isn't useful. In some instances, it's very useful. The problem is that it's not a separate category by any means. The "tablet" part - basically, making the screen a touchscreen - is just a feature of a laptop. It's not an entirely separate category of computers. By making it so, Microsoft confused customers quite a bit. If, instead, they had pitched it as a feature that made laptops more usable, they might have discovered more people were buying laptops with such touchscreens, instead of wondering whether they needed a "tablet" or a "laptop".
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in thread ]
More failures
Microsoft should stick to what they do best - make under-powered, under-secured, crash-prone operating systems and charge too much for them instead of trying to take over every single aspect of the IT industry.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
grrrr
Did BG impose design retrictions on tablets like he did with Pocket PC's of late?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Price is the issue
[ link to this | view in thread ]
No Subject Given
They(whoever) need to come up with the 'next' form of input. Not think we users want to go back to one we've given up on.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Price is the issue
[ link to this | view in thread ]