Samsung quits desktop PC biz, will stick to all-in-ones and portables Underscoring yet again the radical shift underway in the personal computing industry, Samsung is shutting down its traditional desktop PC business to focus on devices with more modern form factors. "Tablets, all-in-one and hybrid PCs are Samsung's current focus," a company official told Korea Times. "Samsung is speeding up its …
Yup. The relevant bit being directly from Samsung -
"The rumor that Samsung is withdrawing from the PC desktop business is groundless. Samsung will continue to offer diverse products according to market needs, including our recently announced ATIV One 5 Style, a stylish all-in-one PC. We will continue to open all possibilities in PC business including our PC Tower business, to satisfy consumer's diverse lifestyle and needs."
I agree about the all in ones. While they do have the advantage of saving desktop space and looking pretty, they lack upgrade potential and I'm reluctant to throw out a perfectly good screen because the computer is too old; my monitor has lasted through a few upgrade cycles and I use it with my work laptop through the KVM switch.
As for laptops, they can have plenty performance for most people; mine is a perfectly adequate gaming machine and is still decently portable. Hardcore gamers, graphics designers or video editors will always require the power of a desktop, though. It all depends what you're using the computer (in the broad term) as to what suits, whether laptop, desktop, tablet or smartphone.
When Samsung took over computer maker AST Research, I saw the hand writing on the wall -- in Korean -- and resigned in early 1997. AST had acquired Tandy's computer businesses in 1993 and with it some advanced products such as the GriD Convertible, a laptop whose keyboard was hidden under the screen in one of its configurations, allowing use of an RF "pen;" an early form of the tablets now flooding the market..
However, Samsung management -- at least at AST -- was so rigid as to later drive many other employees away beside myself and, as Wikipedia put it, had to close that enterprise due to "a mass defection of research talent."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AST_Research
http://astmachines.com/
AST -- Nobody Compares. Hardly anyone remembers. Sic semper tyrannosaurus.
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