Asustek details tablet PC plans
Asustek Computer plans to launch several tablet PCs featuring 7-, 10- or 12-inch panels and will start launching them in December 2010, according to company president Jerry Shen. — Asustek is aiming to mass produce the 12-inch model featuring …
Context & Ripple Effects
Asustek spent 2008-2009 widening its product lines beyond the Eee PC franchise that made its name: an Android handset planned for 1H09 under its own brand, then the Ion-based Eee Box nettop and Eee Keyboard in late 2009. President Jerry Shen's announcement of 7-, 10- and 12-inch tablets starting December 2010 extends that pattern from niche accessories and phones into the fastest-moving hardware category of 2010.
The detail that matters most in the announcement is scale intent: Asustek plans mass production of the 12-inch model, not just a showcase unit. Notably, the story drew no syndicated pickups beyond DigiTimes' own report, keeping this a Taiwan supply-chain signal rather than a consumer-market splash.
First-order effects
- Asustek commits to shipping three panel sizes (7-, 10-, 12-inch) from December 2010, spreading its component orders and engineering resources across a wider slate than any single Eee-branded product line before it.
- Jerry Shen is staking the company's 2011 product calendar on tablets, making the December launch window a hard deadline for Asustek's ODM partners and retail channels.
Second-order effects
- Panel and component suppliers now have another volume buyer bidding across three display sizes simultaneously, tightening allocation in exactly the quarter when every PC maker's tablet programs ramp for the holiday-to-CES season.
- Rival Taiwan vendors — Acer, MSI and others already coordinating launches with Asustek on netbooks — face pressure to match a full three-size lineup rather than a single me-too tablet SKU.
Third-order effects
- If the three-size approach holds, tablet competition settles into segmented form-factor portfolios — small, mainstream and large screens aimed at different price points — instead of a one-device-wins market, favoring manufacturers like Asustek with existing netbook-scale supply chains.
- The move accelerates the erosion of the netbook category that built Asustek, as vendors reallocate the same low-cost engineering base toward tablets.
The trend: Taiwan's netbook-era OEMs are converting their low-cost manufacturing playbook into multi-screen-size tablet lineups, turning the 2010-2011 tablet race into a portfolio contest rather than a single-product duel.