[nknighthb]

> You wouldn't agree that more than a few percent of the kind of people who were already heavy office PC users back in 1985 now use laptops on aeroplanes, in hotel rooms or at conferences or other people's offices?

No, I wouldn't. Hotel room is more likely, but is just substituting for home/office.

Huge numbers of heavy office PC users exist. Only a tiny fraction use a laptop anywhere but home or the office, and a tinier fraction of those do so routinely. It is a niche market.

> the "vast majority" of US business travellers who travel with a laptop

There aren't that many business travelers in the first place. You're already looking at a niche market.

> I promise you that the market for laptops back around 1989-90, when they started to be a real commercial hit, was not dominated by people who only wanted to shuttle theirs back and forth between home and work

My argument: On-the-go laptop use is niche.

Your apparent reply: Early laptop users used them on-the-go.

It's a non sequitur. That the ideal market for a product adopts the product does not mean that the market is not niche. The two have no relationship.