Toshiba doesn’t know if it will bring netbook to the US

I haven’t had a chance to visit the Toshiba booth at CES yet, but the folks at CNet have already asked the biggest question that’s on my mind: Does the company plan to release its Toshiba NB100 netbook in the US? The answer, for now, is a big old maybe.

The Toshiba NB100 is already available in Europe and Mexico. But according to CNet, Toshiba officials are worried that releasing the low cost netbook in the US could cannibalize sales of pricier laptop computers.

Posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009, 10:46 am by Brad Linder

Linc (MonkeyKing)

Toshiba dudes….do you hear what you saying? Your your netbook won't kill your sales half as well as everyone else's netbook will. Get in on the market so you sell anything at all.

Also, if a netbook with a small processor and a small screen and not many extras kills your 'pricey laptop' sales then your laptops are not a decent value to start with…maybe that would be someting to fix no matter what you do?
Linc (MonkeyKing)

BTW: I up-keep of five Toshiba units at the library. They are nice machines and good values since they’re discount bin products not the newer models.

The most disappointing issue is I see Netbooks as “gate way” machines. What Toshiba is losing out on is name recognition in the computer market in the US when they don’t have a “gate way” machine for sale. That is not to say the NB100 is a great machine, but among the 8.9” selection it held its own for specs and it would have been a known brand.

I suppose it’s not a big deal since they don’t yet have a 10” model for sale, but it seems illogical for Toshiba to not enter into the Netbook marketplace. I hope they have a 10” by the end of the year that we could buy.
ToniBorgetto

Well, the NB100 is available in Europe, but practically nobody is buying it, it's an utter failure commercially.

So I guess the real reason is that Toshiba doesn't see any chance that this model would be worth the effort of introducing it now also in the US. Maybe they are working on an updated netbook (10″?), which actually stands a chance in the marketplace.
T. Lord

What I heard at the Toshiba booth today was, first (as you're aware) “Well, there's a netbook type machine that's on sale in developing markets, but no plans are yet official about whether we'll be selling it in the U.S.,” and, second (from another representative) “six months.” Slight paraphrase, but that was the gist. (I got the 6-months answer when I asked about some of the disembodied lids (no keyboard / CPU) on display, the bottom row of which looked very netbook like, in size and color. (Didn't match any of their other machines on display, not even some of their quite-small ones.)
Chris

Also in Canada!
Chris

Also in Canada!

Toshiba doesn’t know if it will bring netbook to the US

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