Ten Reasons Why

Wal-mart is apparently planning to launch its own line of Wal-Mart notebook computers. The article from CNet says:

The retail giant plans to begin offering notebooks under its own brand name during the first quarter of 2004, according to industry sources quoted in a report the Taiwan Economic News published this week. . . . If Wal-Mart, which sells PCs from companies such as Hewlett-Packard and eMachines, moves into the notebook market successfully, it could send ripples across the PC industry. The retailer’s typically aggressive pricing could compel manufacturers such as Dell, HP and Toshiba to reduce their notebook prices in response, analysts said.

Thinking about this in the light of the recent Fast Company article on Wal-Mart, this could feasibly be a move that significantly affects notebook pricing, particularly for manufacturers that sell via retail stores (e.g. Hewlett-Packard).
It would also be interesting to see if if Wal-mart would forsake Windows and sell Wal-mart-branded laptops with Lindows or Lycoris (two consumer-oriented desktop versions of a Linux OS) installed. They already sell Lindows workstations from Microtel. Given that the Linux-based Microtel desktops haven’t exactly revolutionized the OS industry, I doubt that a Linux-based Wal-mart notebook would.
But it would be fun to see Wal-mart and Microsoft get into competition. :)

Greg Technology & Internet