The iPad won’t beat netbooks according to Asus boss, Jerry Shen. While Asus has its own Eee Pad set to arrive in June, he’s still backing little laptops like the Asus Eee PC to outsell the iPad. But then, he would say that wouldn’t he?
During Asus’s earnings call today, Jerry Shen took aim at the iPad, perhaps in revenge for the frequently dismissive comments Steve Jobs has made about netbooks.
He said: “The tablet PC is a cloud computing device. If it weren’t for Apple, this market would develop a lot more slowly. Web-based applications for devices like the iPad tend to store their data in the cloud, whereas netbook users tend to store their applications and data on the device.”
Despite its continuing love for netbooks, Asus plans to unveil the Eee Pad at Computex in June and has confirmed that it will come in several versions. One of them will run Windows 7 which, with the HP Slate seemingly set to be killed off, is good news for Microsoft.
Asus shifted 1.6m Eee PCs in the last quarter but is Shen’s faith in the future of netbooks foolish? Will people still gobble up models like the two O2 3G laptops we saw yesterday or is the future tablet shaped?
