ASUS Acer announces discontinued Netbook: Cloud computing or helping it regenerate

The last two netbook manufacturers Asus and Acer recently confirmed that, from January 1 this year, once the remaining goods sold out of stock, will no longer introduce new netbooks. Combined with Samsung, Hewlett-Packard and Dell abandoning netbooks, netbooks, the new darling of the 2007 PC market, hurried through the 5-year-old life cycle.

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Yesterday, the reporter visited Zhongguancun many electronic stores found that once propped up sales of half the sky has been relegated to the second line, shelves most prominently placed on the new ultra-polar and tablet computers.

"We have a lot of stock, to buy on the hurry Ah, but now sell one less one!" "Ding Good Electronics Mall Dell store staff to inquire about netbooks, consumers strongly recommended." The reporter saw in the shop, in order to hurriedly clean up the stock, the netbook is placed in eye-catching position vigorously sell. Although the Sea Dragon, Zhongguancun e-World and other electronic Mall of the Internet will be back to the market is mostly reluctant to blunt, a proxy Asus, Dell and other brands of senior dealers told reporters, manufacturers have indeed to the distributor has disclosed the production of discontinued information.

The distributor said that the electronic products as long as the production, inventory machine pressure will be very large, large capital occupancy will make the store operation difficult, so hit netbook will soon enter the price of the tail goods stage. "The existing two thousand or three thousand-yuan netbook may be reduced to more than 1000 yuan, or even hundreds of yuan is possible." "he said.

On the electric Business website, the sale of the netbook has begun to clear the tail goods. The East Beijing page shows that there are 82 netbooks, but the actual goods are only 50, and half of them hung out of the red "straight" or "giveaway" and "Sold out" words, in the price selection bar, there are even "tail goods clearance" option. Gome in the 15 of netbooks sold, there are 3 no spot, 8 are discounting promotions or gifts. Cat Mall Ren Mai digital franchise store customer service said that the store's netbook has been reduced to the lowest, including an ASUS 10-inch netbook from 1999 yuan straight 500 yuan for sale.

Once the scenery opened a new era

Back in 2007, Asus unveiled the first Eee PC701, a small, low-power, inexpensive netbook, with a 7-inch screen and a 4GB laptop with a stunning world. For a time, the major computer manufacturers Dell, Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo and other dozens of Chinese and foreign manufacturers swarmed, even Microsoft also took out the Windows 7 to support the development of netbooks, Intel is tailored to the netbook's Atom processor.

With traditional notebook internet, chat, send and receive mail, processing documents and other functions, netbook volume is more lightweight, the screen is generally not more than 10 inches, the price of two thousand or three thousand yuan is only half of the average notebook. Before the advent of netbooks, Sony, Samsung and other manufacturers have launched a small notebook, but the price is not cheap, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Lenovo and other Low-cost notebooks, but the appearance and market performance in general. Under the global financial crisis, consumers are at a respectful distance from expensive laptops. Asustek's "Low price" and "small" these two elements together, but produced a wonderful chemical reaction, suddenly grabbed the hearts of consumers.

This is not "innovative" gadgets, the financial crisis has played the PC industry "life-saving straw" role. Two years in 2008 and 2009, netbooks hit a peak. Sales figures were so hot that the US market research firm ABI study was optimistic about netbooks, saying it opened a new era and predicted that 2010 netbooks would ship up to 139 million units.

As a result, netbooks shipped 39.4 million units, just a fraction of the forecast. But this is already ahead of the 23 million Tablet PC. And in 2011 years, the situation changed, tablet computer shipments of 63 million units, but only 29.4 million netbooks.

The 2012 figures are nothing like that. IDC estimates that the 2012 Tablet PC shipments are 122 million units, and netbooks are not worth the shipping volume. In fact, with the last two of the firm's positions, Asus and Acer stopped production, 2013 netbook sales will be basically zero.

Ultra-polar plates become "killers"

Why does the once-beautiful netbook have a life span of just 5 years? From the user's feelings or can be glimpse.

"My netbook must be a single-celled organism, running only one program at a time, opened the mailbox can not open QQ, opened the QQ can not open Wang Wang, point alipay payment, you can use mobile phone to see 30 micro-blog before jumping to the payment page." The boot will endure 1 minutes 56 seconds. ”

"Now there are Wi-Fi on the streets, a tablet computer, speed, Internet, fun, and can carry a wireless keyboard, Microsoft's Surface tablet can also install Windows, thin and practical, who still use antique netbook?" ”

Xiang, CEO of the network, said that the invention of the netbook was the beginning of the PC manufacturer in the financial crisis to take a breather, and seek new breakthroughs in a transition product, it is not progress, or even a setback, "its low price, low configuration of the positioning is very embarrassing." ”

In recent years, the popular market of the ultra-book and tablet computer, the netbook is facing the biggest blow.

Although the original ultra-extreme Intel has not been given a particularly strict definition, but from the current listing of all models, someone for the first generation of ultra-polar painting a "sketch": Thickness less than 18 mm, The weight is less than 1.5 kg; wakes from hibernation, takes less than 10 seconds, uses a high-performance processor, runs multiple programs at the same time, remains fluent, and is at least 5 hours in the daily routine, which has a direct impact on netbooks.

The price of traditional laptops is getting lower and higher, the more trendy hyper-current appears; The ipad-led lighter tablet is quickly taking over the market; The global economic situation is improving and netbook prices have weakened, and the big four killers have combined to end netbooks. Jack Scoffield, a Guardian columnist for the UK, wrote in the article.

"Consumers who buy small notebooks usually have desktops or large notebooks that are less sensitive to prices and have high performance requirements." So when Intel unveiled the hyper-concept, Apple's ipad-throwing, the global tablet craze, the advantages of a lighter, more portable, more powerful supercomputer and tablet squeezed the netbook's dominance. "The wrong way for Internet commentators is to point out that too much cheap pricing leaves manufacturers with too little profit margins and a business model that is not sustainable. "The licensing fee for Windows 7 is 50 dollars, which allows the manufacturer to chart a small profit." ”

The gold-wrong knife believes Apple's 999-dollar, 11-inch MacBook Air notebook, launched in the second half of 2010, gave the struggling PC maker a wake-up call: The price war is not the future of industry, and the high-end market is really profitable.

Prospect

Cloud computing promises to revive netbooks

In fact, there are people in the industry who disagree with the end of the netbook.

"The netbook just took a nap and returned without being sentenced to death." "There is a view that the advent of cloud computing has made netbooks see hope again."

The idea is that the advances in cloud computing make it easy to work with a variety of office activities, such as collaboration and document sharing, reducing the importance of local storage devices such as hard drives. "Consumers have criticized that netbooks do not have optical drives, and today, how many people are still using them?" One industry insider said.

The survey, published by Tencent, also showed that 31% of netizens supported the idea that netbooks would be reborn. "When a tablet appears, some people think it will replace a mobile phone or even a laptop, and now the tablet is just sitting quietly at home instead of taking it to the office, and the laptop is still what consumers need, and the tablet computer can't dominate." "A Netizen believes that some of the features of tablets are still not comparable to netbooks, some even have no USB interface, only for entertainment." There are netizens who believe that the netbook is the category of notebook, The notebook will eventually return to the netbook portable, Easy-to-use Road, but manufacturers must play a continuous creativity, especially in mobile applications to achieve better performance.

This trend has also been verified by a dealer with close ties to the manufacturer. "The news from the manufacturers is that the term ' netbook ' is gone, but Asus, Dell and other manufacturers will not give up the concept of small notebook, 10-inch, 11-inch small notebook will continue to develop, but regardless of performance or configuration, is certainly higher than the current netbook." ”

(Responsible editor: The good of the Legacy)