Archive for August 9, 2008

Both Asustek and Acer are reportedly prepping up plans to offer their netbooks as promotional bundles with 3G online services. Asustek has already made some agreement with NTT Docomo in Japan to offer the Eee PC 701 for $.91 bundled with the company’s 3G service. Next up, it is also planning to team up with both T-Mobile and TNT in Europe to offer the Eee PC for $1.52 which is also tied-up with the companies telecoms package.

Perhaps taking a cue from Asustek, Acer is also looking at offering the same packages for their Aspire One. Acer is hell bent on achieving its five million sales target, and perhaps the best way they could achieve this is to get into these kinds of promotional gigs.

The only difference among these two companies way of marketing their netbooks is the fact that Asus is promoting its oldest netbook model which is the Eee PC 701 since it has released so many upgrades of the netbook already, and this might well be just left-over supplies which remained in their inventory. As for Acer’s Aspire One, the netbook has only been released not so along ago and it hasn’t reached the same popularity level as the Eee PC 701. So, it might still be a little early to offer the netbook at such dirt-cheap package.

But then, a corporate sales target must still stand and must be achieved at whatever cost, right ACER?

Acer has also talked with several telecommunication vendors for cooperation, which could bring the netbook bundle price down to zero which is the main reason Acer is still confident of achieving its shipments goal of five million units in 2008, the sources believe.

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Asustek and Acer Team Up with Telcos to Offer Dirt Cheap Netbooks

Although we’ve been hearing about rumors and seeing leaks about Dell’s Inspiron Mini netbook for quite some time now, nothing much has been coming officially from Dell about it. Then out of the blue a reader left a comment on one of our Dell Inspiron Mini coverage tipping us that Dell might announce it officially on August 12.

I would have discounted that tip as plain rumor but Brad over at Liliputing wrote that the Dell will be launching a press event next week, and this could might well be the official launch of the Dell Inspiron Mini. Actually we think that next week would be the right time to launch Dell’s netbook if Dell still wants to capture some share of the exploding netbook market. Other competitors are coming out and announcing about their netbooks one after the other and Dell should have maintained the hype over their machines since it was first reported.

We should remember that the Dell Inspiron Mini would have an 8.9-inch LCD display, so Dell might be a bit late in entering this niche market since consumer interest is starting to shift to the bigger 10-inch netbook niche. But with the Dell Inspiron Mini’s expected price tag starting at around $299, it might actually spark great interest from the netbook consumers.

The key here if Dell wants to make big headway when it enters the netbook market is to come up with something different, bigger and better. And the only way we see which Dell could do this is to release the Dell Inspiron Mini at a highly competitive price than its competitors. Otherwise, it could just be considered as on of ‘em netbooks falling second only to the Eee PC.

So, what’s it gonna be Dell?

A post from the Asus Eee PC blog.

Dell to Launch its Inspiron Mini Netbook Next Week?