Businesses Buy iPads: The Age Of The Mini-PC May End

The mini-PC helped pull the industry though the global recession. Its sales outstripped those of larger, more expensive PCs. Research groups like Gartner proclaimed that the trend might go on for years as consumers and businesses migrated to machines that allowed people to surf the internet and use e-mail, all for under $300. But as worldwide PC growth moved up to 20% in the second quarter, mini-PC growth slowed. The market for the products may have become saturated, which runs counter to earlier forecasts. The Wall Street Journal reports that sales of Apple Inc AAPL iPads to businesses have been strong. The paper writes “Businesses are behaving differently with the iPad, in large part because the new device is starting out as more of a known quantity from a technical standpoint. The iPad runs the same operating software as the iPhone, which has been enhanced with a number of business-friendly features.” The trend, if confirmed, would undermine some of the improvement in sales at corporations including Hewlett-Packard HPQ and Dell DELL. To read the rest, head over to 247WallSt.com