Acer Chairman: Tablets Overrated, Ultrabooks Are The Future!

Posted 08/26/2011 at 10:49am | by Brad Chacos

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Ah, fads. Without those brief, yet intense, bursts of consumer excitement, the majority of us may have never heard awesome tidbits like the Pet Rock, bell-bottom pants, the Macarena, Tickle Me Elmo or Trapper Keepers. If you listen to Acer chairman JT Wang, one of our useful modern electronics is soon to join those fabled ranks. That’s right, while the pundits are busy calling tablet PCs the best thing since sliced bread, Wang thinks the whole iPad deal is overblown. The future lies in Ultrabooks!

Wang told DigiTimes that the tablet craze is already starting to come back to earth, but they still seem sky-high to us. Wang (and unnamed DigiTimes sources) say that since slates are mainly used for blowing off steam, rather than actual work (cough, cough), consumers will be a lot less likely to replace them too often. So, the thinking goes, tablet sales will even out – or possibly drop off – once a certain level of market penetration is achieved.

On the other hand, Ultrabooks – like the $800 model Acer plans on launching later this year – should draw in consumers like gangbusters, Wang said (although we're paraphrasing a bit). He said several surveys conducted by Acer point to a high level of customer interest in the new ultrathin, high-powered laptops. While Wang admits that Ultrabooks won’t make too much of a splash in 2011, presumably due to their late launch, he expects them to account for 25 to 35 percent of all notebook shipments in 2012.

Of course, Wang would have to say something like that after Acer hemorrhaged money in the second quarter. The company posted a $246 million operating loss – its first quarterly loss ever.