People have accumulated stuff that runs on their PCs. Most people who buy iPads keep around their computer to do at least a few things, even if they don't use it very much. The sales pitch on a Win 8 tablet is that it docks to your desk, replaces your PC for everything, and you can still pick it up and carry it everywhere like an iPad.
That seems like a pretty fair sales pitch to me.
I'll be impressed if they can pull that off and still make it so I can carry it around like an iPad.
What I fear, however, is that they'll make this a hybrid that fails in both scenarios: not powerful enough to handle "3D PRo Plus 2007", yet too power hungry to let my wife watch 5 episodes of Desperate Housewives back to back.
Until I see production hardware, I'm on the fence.
That's weird... PCs (Mac, Linux, Windows, etc...) have done this for the past 20+ years and a pretty good job of it.
Everyone loves to talk about the demise of the PC, but virtually everyone who has seen the ultrabooks has told me they want one. The only ones who don't are those that say, "Well I already have a MacBook Air". So, sure the Apple 5% may not continue down the PC path, but I think we're looking at a PC rennaisance. And in large part due to Apple.
Except we've already tried that. With pretty much every tablet that was ever made before the iPad. How many times are people going to go "but wait, mine is... a whole computer!" before they realize consumers don't want this? The reason the iPad won was because it wasn't a computer. It was a device, an appliance.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/09/13/survey-shows-unpreced... see exhibit 4 - 85% of the tablet buyers intend to buy an iPad.
http://mashable.com/2011/09/12/apple-set-to-break-record-for...
the status quo may not stay the status quo for long... especially with people slowly admitting that, at least for moms and grandmas, tablets may be much more in line with their needs.
Paul Graham was even just on stage talking about how Microsoft likely doesn't see how bad its going to get for them...
Same is the case with the surveys above. Everybody wanted to buy an iphone until android came along...
