Desk to lap
Cnet has published some interesting statistics related to computer purchases this holiday season--laptops are beating desktops, hands down. Notebook shipments were up 57.7% during the first 3 weeks of the shopping season from the same period last year. Also the average price of a notebook has fallen 20% from last year.
I find this trend fascinating. I think that it illustrates that we're becoming a mobile computing society and that's a significant shift in how computers are used; just as much as the transition from desktop publishing to all-in-one game and media machine.
Computing is no longer an isolated research activity done at a fixed station at home or work, it's often more useful when transportable, especially when it can be used online.
So what's this mean to the future of consumer computing? This is actually a negative sign for quick adoption of Windows Vista, because notebook computers are notoriously unupgradeable. They use custom hardware manufacturer generated drivers and it often takes the companies a year or more to support new OS's for anything complex.
Posted on December 20, 2006
