Consumer Expectations in the Netbooks Market

There is no doubt that Netbooks device category has been one of the hottest and most talked about consumer product categories in recent times. There has been a massive amount of consumer interest in netbooks and industry analysts have been keeping a very close watch on whether these inexpensive devices are actually going to cannibalize sales of the more expensive PC devices. Like many other prominent hardware and software vendors, McAfee too has a vested interest to see how things play out in the netbooks market.

IDC expects 26.4M units of netbooks to be shipped globally in 2009, and most of the industry analysts have generally forecast strong growth for the next few years on the horizon. However, a new survey by NPD suggests that a large number of consumers who buy netbooks may be dissatisfied with their purchase. According to the survey results, 60 percent of consumers who purchase netbooks expect them to have similar functionality and performance as notebooks. The data clearly suggests that consumers’ expectations have not quite been sufficiently managed or met by the netbook vendors so far. Assuming that the results of this survey really reflect the true sentiments of netbook consumers, this data should be a major wake-up call for the netbook manufacturers and retailers.

At the end of the day, netbooks are meant to be lower-cost computing devices with scaled down features and specifications. Therefore, consumers who purchase netbooks and are expecting performance and functionality similar to notebooks are bound to be disappointed. In light of this, we could find an ever-increasing emphasis from vendors to position netbooks as companion devices (second or third PC) which cater to mobility and portability needs, rather than as replacements for traditional notebooks and desktops. Positioning and marketing netbooks in this fashion will go a long way in ensuring that consumers know what they are buying and are eventually more satisfied with their purchases.

This data from NPD also has great relevance for McAfee. A part of consumers’ satisfaction also has to do with expectations that the applications on their netbooks will run as fast as they would on a traditional PC. Therefore, software vendors such as McAfee also have a very pivotal role to play. From a security perspective, netbooks running on a Windows OS need the same level of protection as regular notebooks running on Windows. However, the challenge is to deliver the same level of protection on these netbooks without any significant performance impact. Leveraging technologies such as McAfee’s Artemis can certainly help. However, McAfee is taking a holistic look at this, and is exploring several other avenues that will enable McAfee to lead in the security software market for netbooks. Meeting and exceeding consumer expectations in the netbooks market space is certainly going to be a challenge, but as always, McAfee is up for it.