Mobile Internet Devices – the mainstay for people who find netbooks too bulky and cumbersome but don't want to give up the ability to modify their Facebook status on the road – may not have taken off in quite the way their makers intended according to figures from industry sources.
Un-named sources quoted by Digitimes show global sales of MIDs based around Intel's Menlow platform sitting at less than 30,000 units – a significant distance from Intel's prediction of 150,000 - 200,000 units.
The root cause – at least according to Intel – is the credit crunch, which has seen consumer spending on gadgets such as shiny new MIDs plummet. A lack of a 'killer app' for a 3G-enabled MID which doesn't double as a mobile 'phone handset also can't be helping matters.
Despite this, an Intel spokesman stated that it believed that MIDs – which represent a new category of Internet centric products for the company – have “great potential” potential for success.
Although the Menlow platform has seen use in both MIDs and netbooks – a move which Digitimes claims was made purely to clear Intel's inventory of excess stock – the next-generation Moorestown platform will be a MID exclusive. The new platform is expected to launch at the end of this year – or at the start of the next at the latest – with engineering samples expected in September.
Can you see the appeal of the MID, or is the market already glutted with increasingly powerful smartphones and ubiquitous netbooks? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
Un-named sources quoted by Digitimes show global sales of MIDs based around Intel's Menlow platform sitting at less than 30,000 units – a significant distance from Intel's prediction of 150,000 - 200,000 units.
The root cause – at least according to Intel – is the credit crunch, which has seen consumer spending on gadgets such as shiny new MIDs plummet. A lack of a 'killer app' for a 3G-enabled MID which doesn't double as a mobile 'phone handset also can't be helping matters.
Despite this, an Intel spokesman stated that it believed that MIDs – which represent a new category of Internet centric products for the company – have “great potential” potential for success.
Although the Menlow platform has seen use in both MIDs and netbooks – a move which Digitimes claims was made purely to clear Intel's inventory of excess stock – the next-generation Moorestown platform will be a MID exclusive. The new platform is expected to launch at the end of this year – or at the start of the next at the latest – with engineering samples expected in September.
Can you see the appeal of the MID, or is the market already glutted with increasingly powerful smartphones and ubiquitous netbooks? Share your thoughts over in the forums.
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