According to Digitimes Microsoft's free upgrade to Windows 10 has had almost no effect in triggering a replacement trend, Intel's new Skylake processors are not driving much demand among consumers. Also 2-in-1 devices, which were originally expected to enjoy strong growth in 2016, may also not perform as expected.

ODMs are now looking at non-notebook product lines especially servers to maintain their gross margin performances in 2016.
Intel has been promoting its Rack Scale Architecture (RSA), which will modularise components such as storage, CPU, memory and networking and allow customers to build servers based on their workload demand.

The theory is that with the RSA architecture, competition in the server industry will grow fiercer and most brand vendors have been looking to form partnerships with suppliers to strengthen their software/hardware integration.Intel's upcoming new Purley platform and datacentre server products are expected to see strong shipments in 2016.

Inventec is one which has shifting its R&D focus to server related products, and its non-notebook product lines' combined revenue contribution reached about half in the fourth quarter of 2015, with servers accounting for 35 per cent.