The Fire's on Fire

How not to compete with Apple — Just copy their stuff:

Intel’s thin-and-light “Ultrabook” design, inspired in part by the success of Apple’s MacBook Air form factor, continues to struggle in the market, prompting PC makers Acer and Asus to reduce orders by 40 percent.

The two companies originally planned to order as many as 300,000 Ultrabooks by the end of 2011, but slow sales forced the company to reduce those orders to between 150,000 and 180,000 units, according to DigiTimes. The report labeled first-month sales of Ultrabook Windows-based PCs as “unsatisfactory,” citing sources at original design manufacturers.

“Compared to Apple’s MacBook Air, Acer and Asustek’s Ultrabooks do not have advantages in either performance or industrial design,” the report said, “and their weak sales were expected, the sources noted, adding that notebook players are putting their focus on after May 2012 with expectations to see surging demand in October 2012, when Windows 8 launches.”

How to compete with Apple — do your own thing, really well:

Faced with greater than expected demand, Amazon has increased orders for its Kindle Fire tablet to a total of five million by the end of the year, according to a new report out of the Far East.

Taiwanese publication DigiTimes noted the figures on Thursday, citing sources within “upstream component suppliers.” Based on recent tablet estimates from research group Gartner, Amazon would pickup roughly 8 percent of the 2011 tablet market if it were to sell all five million units.

The report suggested that Amazon had raised its order volume from 3.5 million to four million in the middle of the third quarter before raising orders again. The significant pre-release interest has come as a bit of a surprise to the company.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a press release last month that his company was increasing production capacity for the Fire in order to build “millions more” than originally planned.

I know not everybody is Jeff Bezos, but c’mon Windows computer-makers — get a clue.