iPad will eat Laptop’s breakfast, Netbook’s lunch and Kindle’s dinner

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When ABI research predicted 35 million netbook shipments, it was conservative. It turned out 36.3 million Netbooks were shipped in 2009. Now ABI estimates that that 58 million netbooks will be shipped in 2010. It might have been correct this time too if it weren’t for the iPad. Apple’s latest gadget, which is creating a whole new market, is trying to eat netbook’s lunch. It will also creep into the laptop market and has already dented eBook readers market.

Apple created three new markets with its last three offerings.

  1. iPod revolutionized the portable music player industry and every music player after iPod was compared with iPod.
  2. iPhone gave a whole new meaning to smartphone and looked like the only device which was smart. Everyone else followed.
  3. iPad – cloned a laptop/netbook and eBook reader, added a touchscreen to it, sprinkled it with Apple’s simplicity and voila – a whole new market.  iPad with its three month existence is challenging the survival of products which existed for years.

Here’s the latest survey results of iPad vs Laptop vs Netbook by Retrovo Blog :

 

78 percent leaning towards iPad is a big shift and a huge dent to Netbook. And a laptop vs Netbook scenario doesn’t bode well for Netbook:

Like all surveys there is a margin of error and they might not depict the real picture. But there is a trend and it is a signal of things to come.

Who will survive? Laptops or Netbooks or iPad or Kindle (eBook readers)?

They can and will co-exist for sometime. Between Laptop and Netbook only one device will survive. Laptop is a clear winner. iPad is a new kind of device which is creating a new market and there is no question of its survival. The only question about iPad is competition. Right now it doesn’t have any. Dell will be introducing its five inch streak which is dubbed as an iPad competitor but I doubt it. It is no where close to becoming an iPad competitor for the simple reason of its screen real estate. Amazon Kindle and B&N Nook turned out to be uni-taskers which iPad can beat with a few agreements with publishers.

This is where we are with iPad right now :

And this is where we will be in the near future :

iPhone has proved that software matters more than hardware. Apple has an ecosystem of software applications which can be easily extended to iPad. This ecosystem is hard to beat. That is something Amazon or Dell can’t do. Android operating system is fast growing and it along with iPhone commands a 25 percent market share. A touch screen tablet running Android operating system will be a close competitor to iPad.

As you can see a product came first before we could decide on a product category (touch screen tablet). How often has that happened?

How far are we from a device which expands the touch screen on-demand and folds up when not needed?



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