Acer chairman: iPad "fever" will recede
One thing you can say about the founder and chairman of Taiwan-based PC maker Acer -- they're optimists. A few weeks ago, TUAW ran a story about Acer founder Stan Shih, who was quoted as saying that iPads were a "fad." Now Acer chairman J.T. Wang is on the record in a Reuter's post as saying that "tablet PC fever is receding," and notebooks will regain consumer interest.
Wang's comments were made in the face of a T$6.79 billion (US$234.3 million) loss in the second quarter ending June 30. That loss was more than double what analysts expected, and is typical of what most PC makers are seeing with the iPad and other mobile devices eating into sales of netbooks and other low-margin laptops.
Acer does stand to benefit from the departure of HP from the PC business. Acer is the number two supplier of consumer PCs in the European market, and between the cold fact of HPs absence and the wishful thinking of Wang that tablets will just go away, the company might be able to make a profit again in the future.
