14 DAY TRIAL // Don't actually know have many of you have seen a Sharp PC in the wild, since I most certainly didn't, but the Japanese manufacturer said they will be getting out of the PC business, choosing to focus on its eReader technology that seems to be in a much better shape then the PC market.
I certainly can't say this news surprise me in any way since the PC industry has been quite slow for a while now, tablets and smartphones gaining a huge momentum, while traditional desktop systems as well as laptops come in with much narrower profit margins, something that certainly doesn't go very well when it comes down to operational profits and the like.
Anyway, moving past its reasons for leaving the PC market, over the years Sharp has released some pretty interesting products such as the world's smallest and lightest notebook PC equipped with both an internal hard drive and a floppy disk drive, released all the way back in the 1990's.
More recent feats include the touchscreen trackpad packing Mebius PC-NJ70A, that could be used not just for controlling the mouse but as a secondary display while also coming with all sort of different applications that could transform it into a piano keyboard or a app launcher.
All of these however are now a thing of the past and the company has decided to concentrate its efforts on its newly developed eReader technology and content delivery system, ultra-compact computing devices just like the NetWalker series also having their part in Sharp's future plans.
The company didn't state when they will cease PC production or when will the last of their PC products be shipped, although they did state this was only a strategic move and that it may one day return to the PC manufacturing business.
End of it all, although Sharp hasn't been that active in the last years this is a sad news indeed since they seems to be one of the most innovative manufacturers in this field, one that will surely be missed. (via slashgear)