You knew it, I knew it, everyone knew it, but Microsoft would not say it: the iPad is bad news for netbooks. However, at long last Microsoft has come out of the denial and is speaking the truth.
Microsoft’s Gavriella Schuster sat down with Nick Eaton and said the following in regards to tablets consuming netbook sales: “These [netbooks] are definitely getting cannibalized. These are really a second device. But they are getting cannibalized.”
Well, yeah, thanks for that. Now, I must admit that Schuster was responding to a generic question about the effect of tablets (and not specifically the iPad) on netbook sales, but as we all know that the iPad controls some 95% of the tablet market, it seems fair that her comments can be construed as a response to the iPad-effect.
Netbook computers are cheap ultra-portables that nearly always run Windows. When they burst onto the scene a few years back it was a revolution in portable computing. That ship may have sailed, can Microsoft create a tablet to compete?
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