ipad is born in Taiwan electronics industry shakes PC industry reshape profit model

The ipad was born, Taiwan's electronics industry rocked the 21st century Economic report Liu Xiaori Shanghai reported April 3, Taiwan, a seemingly unrelated to the island of the day. On this day, Apple's ipad is officially on sale in the United States.　　News reached Taiwan, and almost all the technology-concept stocks that were on the ipad's behalf were up, but others were not happy. "In just a few months after Apple launched the ipad, almost all the names of Taiwanese PC makers have launched their own tablet PCs," he said. "April 8, the product manager of Taiwan's Avatar computer told reporters. In fact, the tablet products of many Taiwanese manufacturers, including God's, have already been placed in booths of various exhibitions long before the launch of the ipad, which is powerful and inexpensive.　　But today, ordinary consumers still find it hard to buy these products. "In the current situation, Apple is already ahead of many other rivals in the tablet," he said.　　"Jiangfang, a senior PC analyst at IDC, Taiwan, said other PC makers could easily catch up with the hardware or even overtake Apple, but Apple has been far ahead of rivals in the backend services, content and software.　　In Taiwan, the ipad has brought a huge conceptual shock to the entire PC industry, and a rethink frenzy is unfolding across the PC industry. So what is it that has constrained the innovation of PC makers from Apple-style revolutionary innovation?　　What are the chances of other PC vendors facing the menacing ipad?　　"Don't call an ipad tablet" ipad is a tablet computer?　　Consumers who get the ipad have pointed out that the ipad is actually not the computer's qualifications-not running multiple programs at the same time, even Flash does not support, such a function is far less than our usual use of computers. Such a product, compared to the powerful Taiwan-style tablet computer, it is like a pale.　　Prior to this, Acer and other manufacturers have long and Microsoft launched a handwritten feature, can screen rotation of the tablet computer. "We should not position the ipad as a tablet, it's a brand new product."　　"The ipad is mainly for entertainment, communication and surfing, and its functional positioning is fundamentally different from the market tablet," said Jiangfang, a senior analyst at IDC's Taiwan PC industry.　　The ipad's market is positioned between a mobile phone and a laptop, and the ipad has given up some of the features Apple believes users don't need, and has done its best--thin enough, 12-hour standby capacity, Internet access to e-books, movies, pictures, and music. In addition, Apple's leading multi-touch capabilities have made those who are accustomed to the iphone fondle admiringly.　　The growing number of apps developers have made ipad apps cooler than other tablets, bringing a completely different user experience to the previous Tablet PC. "For example, there is a simulated piano app that uses fingers on the iphone and ipad to talk about the piano,It's the way the Windows system doesn't feel.　　An ipad fan told reporters.　　Despite the iphone, many manufacturers have launched their own multi-touch technology, but in the eyes of consumers, the use of multi-touch technology and the level of fluency is a different situation.　　In the Mobile world, Google's Nexus One has almost lost the iphone on the touchscreen, reminding people that Apple, which has been in multi-touch technology for years, is still ahead of the technology. The ipad's processor is a A4 processor developed by Apple.　　Industry analysis, this operating speed of 1GHz processor is actually a ARMCPU+GPU combination.　　But the ipad has the advantage of low price and long battery life, compared to a tablet that uses Intel processors to run Windows-—— It is the system architecture that X86 the full PC functionality but the price is high. Those unlucky losers. "I expect the Tablet PC to be the best selling pc in the US in five years ' time," he said.　　"November 11, 2001, Microsoft President Bill Gates vowed that this kind of touch screen, handwriting input function, no keyboard, easy to carry the computer will replace the traditional notebook location."　　In that era of Silicon Valley, Google is not often mentioned, Apple was once seen by Wall Street investors as a declining company, laptops are still unwieldy, many people do not know what mobile Internet is ... But 10 years on, Microsoft's Tablet PC is still visible only in hospitals, education, government and other limited industries, and Microsoft's PC partners have complained to gates that the so-called revolutionary product is simply not selling.　　The original tablet partners were left alone, and Acer was still bracing for it.　　On a technical level, tablets are hard to design in the background of a relatively backward chip process. In software, although Microsoft has been developing a tablet-specific operating system, but its main breakthrough or input mode, and not in the touch screen market to achieve full functional touch.　　As a result, the tablet computer used to operate on the keyboard, the mouse, and traditional notebook products are very small differences. The mobile internet is far from as mature as it is today when Microsoft unveiled its Tablet PC.　　The era of the launch of the Microsoft Tablet was untimely, and to a large extent led to the ultimate tragic fate.　　Why do they refuse to change? "From the recent years that PC makers have been aggressively pushing netbooks, smart books and tablet computers, PC makers are keen to do some revolutionary innovation, but the problem is that they are stuck in the Wintel architecture and it's hard to make truly revolutionary products."　　Jiangfang analysis. In the early days of entering the tablet market, PC makers faced two choices: the ability to add touch to the screen of an existing laptop with a keyboard, andOne is like the ipad, which is simple enough to touch the screen.　　But PC makers soon discovered that it was too hard for them to completely redefine a PC like the ipad. "Screen-only tablets need to be thin, which involves heat dissipation, and all the lines have to be redesigned so that they greatly increase costs," he said. "Jiangfang analysis.　　This in part determines the high price of Tablet PCs launched by PC makers, which has greatly hampered its rapid access to ordinary consumers.　　So the design to design, or Microsoft's operating system plus Intel's chip is the most convenient-although the profit is meager, but the return is very stable, which makes PC manufacturers would rather thirst than bold innovation. "Under the Wintel architecture, the most important technology is not in the hands of PC manufacturers, the operating system is provided by Microsoft and the chip is designed by Intel." Any innovation by PC manufacturers will be greatly hampered by such a framework.　　Jiangfang points out that any revolutionary innovation by PC makers requires a complete reversal of existing application patterns.　　The immediate consequence is that in recent years almost all PC manufacturers have been upgrading the physical performance of laptops-faster chips, larger hard drives, larger memory, and while this innovation has once boosted the industry, its ills have continued to date.　　For example, under the X86 framework of Wintel, the battery endurance of laptops, which has been at a very low level for a long time, still cannot go beyond the 35-hour level today – is a major impediment to the spread of some revolutionary applications in the mobile internet age.　　The PC industry has reshaped its profit model with the impact of the ipad, Taiwanese PC makers have begun to rethink their profitability. Prior to the launch of the ipad, Asus and Acer, as well as Quanta, Compal and Weft Chong, were quietly involved in the development of tablet computers.　　Industry insiders said Acer and ASUS products are being tested. "All the new tablet computers are starting to look more and more like the ipad. Observed Jiangfang rhyme. For the vast majority of PC manufacturers, on the hardware beyond the apple seems easy. "On the hardware, we only have 3 months to make a flat product."　　"The product manager of Shen da Computer told the reporter. In the company such as God, the good content also need to have easy hardware support, the current hardware there is a lot of room for improvement. "Is it easy enough for us to use the interface?" Let consumers use the computer without looking at the instructions? The simpler the consumer uses, the more difficult it is to design.　　"said the product Manager of God. This amounts to a significant increase in the entry threshold of the tablet computer. "We have to design a hardware and related software to match the perfect product, it will take at least a year."　　"The product manager of Shen da Computer told the reporter. "PC makers have to start thinking about how to work with Apple's App Store and content resources, although Apple is a closed system, but I believe we can always find space for cooperation." "Avatar Computer ProductsThe manager told the reporter. Wang, Acer's chairman, recently expressed the same view that the ipad is not a hardware technology issue for other companies, but rather a package of content, software, and services behind it.　　Acer is thinking about a complete business model. But the question is, how much space does Acer have to play?　　The real problem is that Apple is already ahead of many other competitors in the background and software and content packages. "Back-Office support, from ipod to iphone to ipad, Apple's App Store, has formed a very complete system, and its legacy is in the same vein."　　Jiangfang points out that Apple, which comes from the system, is likely to be too much of a partnership with other PC makers.　　That is tantamount to saying that PC makers such as HP, Dell and Acer have been hard pressed to look at Apple's Xiang.　　One likely scenario is that PC makers ' tablets are not enough to pose a threat to the ipad, but they can squeeze the share of a mini notebook that is still in its infancy, if prices drop sharply after massive inputs into production. The most optimistic estimate is that tablets will form a new consumer electronics category, which does not hurt the original market share of PC manufacturers-and the ipad still has many flaws, which allows PC manufacturers to design more powerful products.　　The Product Manager of God's computer points out that today's market environment has changed a lot from a few years ago, such as the maturity of mobile Internet applications, so the failure of the tablet computer in the past does not mean that the tablet has no chance. "When the ipad comes in, it brings a lot of software developers into the market and makes our overall share bigger."　　"His team has been working with Chen Hailei to design a tablet computer," said Silicon Ding, founder of Silicon Valley, which is home to the venture.　　As for the development of the most important content platform for e-books or tablets, Acer's Wang said on April 8 that Acer would join the open platform content camp, such as Google's Android. Wang points out that the future content platform can be broadly divided into Apple and open camp two major barriers, the latter will be the Apple camp several times large, but the initial open camp needs time to brew integration, concatenation, momentum may lag behind Apple, but in the long run, open camp market scale will be far beyond Apple.