How Laptop Warranties Impact Mobile Broadband Prospects

IanFogg | May 29, 2008, 03:04 AM

Consumers are adopting laptops in large numbers. In the 80s, the PC industry targeted putting one PC on every desk. The 90s saw a shift to selling one PC into every home.

Now, the market has moved again and now the industry is selling one PC to every person in the home, and that PC is a laptop.

We've published research about this consumer shift to laptops and the impacts here and here.

The attraction of laptops to consumers is mostly due to their compact size and convenience. The laptop is the true successor to the late 90s Apple iMac. But for most of the time, just like an iMac, consumer laptops remains housebound.

For consumers to take their laptops with them outside the home -- on which many business models and services are being based -- several preconditions need to be in place:

- There must be a clear consumer benefit, for example easy, cheap, universal broadband Internet access via a flavour of wireless technology, or photo storage or sharing.
- The laptops that consumers buy must not weigh a ton.
- Consumers must be confident enough in their warranties and the repair process to risk the knocks, rough and tumble which are inevitable for any device carried around.

(As an aside, this is one of the reasons people routinely replace their mobile phones every 18 months to two years: wear and tear. It's not just about fashion.)

On Tuesday I wrote about my poor experience with Dell, I'm not going to add to that until the situation is resolved (isn't yet).

But the implications of a poor repair service and warranty cover go far beyond my circumstance: Unless laptop makers get support right, consumers will be strongly discouraged from taking their laptops with them outside the home, and this will be a major barrier to the mobile broadband solutions being marketed by mobile, wimax and wifi operators.