Acer: 3G and Chrome will revolutionise laptops in 2010

 

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By Tim Danton

Posted on 14 Oct 2009 at 10:53

Acer chief executive Gianfranco Lanci has predicted that 3G will be standard in laptops within a year, and that Google Chrome will emerge as a major competitor to Windows.

Speaking at The Langham in central London, Lanci said: "We [will] start to see all-day computing connectivity. When today people think about connectivity people think about Wi-Fi, but I think 3G will become standard in notebooks six to nine months from now."

While he had some words of praise for Windows 7, declaring it "a big step ahead in terms of user experience, in terms of speed, and it's the first time a new OS doesn't need new hardware," Lanci also predicted that Google would become an important competitor.

When today people think about connectivity people think about Wi-Fi, but I think 3G will become standard in notebooks 6-9 months from now

"Chrome can be a viable alternative to Microsoft's OSes for web application on different mobile devices," he explained.

It wasn’t necessarily bad news for Microsoft, however, as Lanci felt sales of netbooks wouldn’t come at the cost of full-blown laptops.

“There is some cannibalisation between netbooks and laptops but it’s not so big. Most of the netbook buyers are new users or are thinking about netbooks for new applications, for emailing, social networks and browsing.”

Lanci cited “big growth” coming from young people and students, “but we’re also starting to see some growth coming from SMB. If you think about [business] people travelling about [the netbook] is a good solution.”