Posted on Friday, January 23 2009 @ 5:35 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
Forbes
writes not Jobs' health problems, but cheap netbooks are the real problem for Apple:
Apple's success in the computer market last year was largely thanks to surging sales of its notebook computers. All told, notebooks began outselling desktop computers in the U.S. market for the first time last year, and Apple's eye-catching designs--and power-sipping Intel processors--positioned the company well to capture a big chunk of that growth.
But while Apple's notebooks were hot sellers last year, average notebook prices are falling fast as the economy worsens. Strong sales of Acer's Aspire One--available for as little as $320 on Amazon.com (nasdaq: AMZN - news - people )--helped the Taiwanese computer company hustle past Apple to grab fourth place in the PC market during the last quarter of 2008, according to Gartner.
