The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current, soon-to-be-obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company's announcing a future product prematurely. It is an example of cannibalization.

The Osborne Computer Corporation (OCC) was an American computer company and pioneering maker of portable computers. It was located in the Silicon Valley of the southern San Francisco Bay Area in California. Adam Osborne, the founder of the company, developed, with design work from Lee Felsenstein, the world's first mass-produced portable computer in 1981.