The CEO of PC manufacturer Asus has revealed that the industry was not prepared for the price and quality of Apple's MacBook Neo.

During the initial reviews of the new MacBook Neo, one columnist counted as a bonus the way that it will prompt manufacturers to make Windows laptops better and more efficient. Now one of those manufacturers has agreed that the MacBook Neo's starting price was a "shock."

As spotted by PC Magazine, Asus CEO S.Y. Hsu has said in an earnings call that PC makers will now have to respond.

"In the past, Apple's pricing situation has always been high," he said (in translation), "so for them to release a very budget-friendly product, this is obviously a shock to the entire industry."

That's despite the industry knowing that Apple was working on such a device, but presumably not what price and build quality it would become "In fact, in the entire PC ecosystem," he continued, "there have been a lot of discussions about how to compete with this product."

Saving face

Having admitted to all of this, though, the Asus CEO switched back to the party line about how Windows is better than the Mac. He specifically called out the limited specifications of the MacBook Neo and how users cannot upgrade.

Criticizing Apple for limiting the device to 8GB RAM, he called it a "content consumption" machine with limited appeal. "[It] is different from the use case of a mainstream notebook," he said, for intensive tasks.

"How big of an impact [it] will have on the PC industry will still require some time for us to observe," continued Hsu. "Of course, the entire Windows PC ecosystem will push out products to compete against Apple."

Also in the earnings call, Hsu said that he expects the current shortage of RAM to continue for two years. Until then, the company will have to re-examine product prices once its current supply of RAM runs out.

This follows recent estimates that the demand for memory will push the retail price of computers up by as much as 40%. Apple appears to be less affected so far because of its previous long-term deals, but it's not immune to the price rises.