Thursday, March 30, 2006

Toshiba makes a much anticipated announcement

One of the joys of being a passionate blogger is the availability of information. The blog in itself has proven a stomping ground for all manner of chi-chat and occasionally some inspiration too. My passion for Tablet, and fervor for the Blog, has exposed me to opportunities once unimaginable. My videos have been watched by thousands, my first podcast downloaded by 2578 unique listeners in the first 48 hrs, and countless emails exchanged in the name of INK.

Today my blog endeavors however lead to a rather disappointing unraveling; today Toshiba announced that they would not be joining the UMPC market space – yet! I know to a small group this will be celebrated news and to others this will be considered a shame. No matter what side of the fence you sit on I think we can all agree that a muscle OEM like Toshiba could only have helped the UMPC footprint cover a more substantial non-technical market place.

Often today brand is a key driver for purchase (Sony products, Apple iPod) and repeatedly we see brand attracting a similar demographic of buyer. If Toshiba had of joined the UMPC space then they may have realized that a portion of the brand-loyal market could have made UMPC viable for their enterprise.

Maybe Toshiba has taken a very clever back seat and are looking to reap rewards from generation 2 and 3; as Matt Codrington alludes to in his commen: “Too heavy to carry in your pocket, and probably can’t be used for extended periods [outside battery life] with a 7” screen.”

I’ll stay on the hunt for Tablet info, and Matt will stay on the hunt for a profitable market share. I guess tonight we’ll all sleep well it seems. I’ve learnt a new found respect for Toshiba Australia, in joining the Naked Conversations that occur on the blogosphere, and know that both UberTablet guy, Hugo Ortega, and Matt Codrington of Toshiba Australia, will live to ink another day!

[Read Toshiba’s Announcement here – comment number 8]

2 comments:

ctitanic said...

Yesterday I commented in my blog about a wonderful article about how today technology is not ready yet for Origamis

http://ultramobilepc-tips.blogspot.com/2006/03/origami-power-analysis.html

My guess is that Toshiba and Dell prefered to stay in the safer side of the game field. ;)

ctitanic said...

If you read our Yesterday commentabout power it's not hard to imagine why Toshiba and Dell have decided to stay away from this project pushed by Microsoft and Intel. These two companies just are not ready for this challange. Plain and simple.

A fragment of my blog, pointing to your comment