Ultrabook sales to fall short — is anyone surprised?

Shipments of ultrabook by Acer and Asustek are expected to reach 100,000 units each by the end of 2011, falling short of their targets of 200,000-300,000 units, due to relatively high prices, reports “DigiTimes” (http://www.digitimes.com), quoting unnamed “sources at channels.” Is anyone surprised?

I mean why would you buy an ultrabook? If you want a compact device for content consumption, get an iPad. If you want a compact device for content creation and already have a desktop computer, get a MacBook Air. If you need a compact device for content creation and don’t have a desktop computer, get a MacBook Pro. It’s that simple.

Of course, to some folks it may not be that simple. Last month Acer Vice President Scott Lin said (http://macte.ch/StrCT) said that upcoming ultrabooks would eat the iPad’s lunch. He said that ultrabooks will account for nearly one-third of the worldwide consumer notebook shipments by the end of next year. What’s more tablets such as the iPad will be the first products to be impacted, he said.

Hmmm. If that happens folks are going to have to get a lot hungrier for ultrabooks and a lot less hungry for the iPad. It seems it’s not going to be the Apple tablet’s lunch that gets eaten.

— Dennis Sellers