News - 10-inch tablets heading for extinction according to Intel exec

[crossy]

The last line has me baffled. Intel proved with the netbook that they can go for the low end market in a major way. This doesn't fit with your previous statement about Intel trying to force people to go high end.

Initial launch of netbooks were quite good - they were cheaply made and sold for the kind of prices that 7" tablets go for these days - so almost disposable items. Then someone (and I personally am going to point the finger of blame firmly at Microsoft here) managed to persuade the manufacturers to slap on a feature-limited copy of Windows on them and bump up the price by 50%.

If the price had remained at it's initial point and the manufacturers hadn't crippled those initial versions with the worst versions of Linux they could find and had stuck to them as Linux boxes, then perhaps we'd be talking about netbooks now. As it stands the last time I saw a netbook was in the "price reduced" sections of Argos and PC World. It is an ex-form factor, it is ceasing to be.

Windows 8 compatibility is a good selling point IMO. In the long run Intel can bring its advanced manufacturing process and its design capabilities to create something which might surpass ARM in performance per watt.

Probably right to an extent - problem with this is that it's the full version of Win8 that's wanted, not that "RT" mule (look at the sales of the Surface). So that means a decent performance and a touchscreen are needed. And that means less battery life and more cost. And while Intel undoubtedly have a huge talent pool, ARM based phones and tablets have such a lead as to surely be unassailable? The smart move for Intel is to accept they've lost the tablet processor "war" and focus on the next "greatest thing" instead (Google Glasses, smartwatches, etc?)

[tallship]

Well it's Intel who said it, so it must be true... /sarcasm

On some level I agree with your skepticism. Yet Intel is basing that statement and forecast upon the data received from consumer trends.

Ultimately, it is the consumer who will make that decision, and the votes are coming in whenever a retail customer uses their wallet.

We can speculate, and recommend, and say to ourselves, "But this is better!", and it may very well be, even though such might be the case, Manufacturers have no such sentiments - they'll follow the trend, and even abandon folks who want that superior product - if it is superior.

It's the manufacturers job to meet the needs of the consumer, prior to to the time they actually know what that is, they might anticipate what they think the consumer wants by simply throw the spaghetti at the wall to see which one's stick, but once they know what sells and what doesn't, they're marketing and manufacturing paradigm changes accordingly.