Netbook (was the now defunct Ultra Mobile Personal Computer)
Ubuntu announced their mobile version of Ubuntu Linux
…targetted at the UMPC sized devices with flash storage (instead of spinning hard drives) that started to gain popularity with the release of Asus Eee PC and OLPC XO last year. Microsoft needs much lighter weight version of Windows Vista if they intend to stay in the ultraportable game. They basically need a Windows Vista Core with a non-Aero lightweight GUI and a much much faster file system.
I read somewhere that the HTC Shift is near shipping and that the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 was announced. (the first Windows Mobile device from a firm that normally uses their home-brewed Symbian OS). Both devices are amazing pieces of ultra mobile technology. The question is: Are they still relevant? We already know that the Shift will be priced around US$1500. And, Sony Ericsson always charges a premium for their products. My guess is that the Xpreia X1 will be priced between $500 and $1000. With ultra mobile devices like the Asus Eee PC, OLPC XO, Everex CloudBook, and Flipstart already in the retail pipeline for well under $1000, are these new entries too little too late?
To make things more interesting, Engadget reports that Microsoft just bought Danger (the Sidekick people). They speculate that this means there will be a Windows Mobile Sidekick in the future. But, take a look at the Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 again. Does that look like WiMo despite it actually does form the base OS? Not really, huh? Have both Microsoft and WiMo hardware vendors lost faith in WiMo? Will the Sidekick platform be the basis of a lighter weight OS and let Microsoft dump the current Windows CE based WiMo in a few years?
I guess we will know more by the end of the calendar year.
The Wired article Linus Torvalds on Why Users Aren’t Flocking to Linux has the Linux creator rationalizing why Linux hasn’t been accepted on the desktop. My message to Mr. Torvalds: Dude, don’t worry about the desktop – Linux has conquered and cornered the ultraportable market! I just went over to ZaReason to check on the availability of the Everex CloudBook and read: We have currently sold our initial batch of Cloudbooks. Please check back after Feb 15th to see if we have received more stock by then. Thank you for your interest. Amazon seems to be able to barely be able to get the webcam “high end” version of the Eee PC (the webcam-less Surf model seems easy to find though). The OLPC folks seems unable to figure out how to get their boxes into the hands of all the people who took part in the Give One Get One (G1G1) program (happy to say we got ours at the beginning of the year). The notebook/subnotebook/ultraportable market is where all the interest is these days. The desktop is relegated to vertical tasks like high end gaming. So, Linux, don’t worry about the Desktop. Linux is making good headway in the UMPC market.
Information Week quotes some Gartner predictions in the article…
More Macs, More Mobile, More Open Source, Gartner Predicts
They predict mobile workers will abandon the notebook form factor in favor of what they term new classes of Internet-centric pocketable devices at the sub-$400 level. Believe it or not, people have been making this prediction since the early 1980s with the introduction of the Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100. I bought one around 1984. Since it was introduced a year earlier in 1983, it is a quarter century old this year! The Model 100 was a great ultraportable and had the best keyboard I’ve ever used on this class of device.
The OLPC and the Asus Eee PC (no, I still haven’t bought one… Maybe I should create a tip jar so I can speed up that process 🙂 showed that the market is hungry for a ultraportable notebook. They also showed that people are willing to use Linux in the right package. The shock for many of us is that the personal Linux box finally caught on, but it took the subnotebook form factor to get it accepted.
I’m having a hard time accepting Gartner’s prediction of a pocket-sized device replacing notebooks or subnotebooks though. Why? People still need to get data into the boxes. And, after 15 years of handheld device innovation (using the Newton’s 1993 launch as an arbitrary starting point), we still haven’t got anything better than keyboards for getting a lot of information into a computer. Sure, speech recognition is amusing, handwriting recognition sort of works, and thumb keyboards caused an email revolution. But, a decent sized QWERTY keyboard is the tool of choice for most of us. And, with the average age of the population pushing up as we baby boomers reach middle and retirement age, the screen size can’t shrink much more to sell into that huge market group.
The really interesting twist depends, I think, on the outcome of Microsoft’s attempt to purchase Yahoo. If Microsoft embraces Yahoo as a whole, they will all of a sudden become a huge Open Source player. As a long time proponent of the interoperability of proprietary software (like Microsoft’s) and Open Source software, I think this could be a huge win.
Of course, huge mergers/acquisitions are never easy and always painful. So, this will be an interesting story to watch play out.
A year ago the then unreleased OLPC XO seemed to have the cheap ultraportable market to itself. However, its altruistic goals limited it to non-retail sales. The idea of $100 (or even the current $200) price for an ultraportable seemed unthinkable for the retail market. Who would buy a cheap small notebook? Then Asus came along with the breakthrough Eee PC. It was not only small and cheap, it also used Linux as its operating system. Hadn’t anyone told Asus that the Linux desktop was a dead idea? Apparently not, and it was a good thing too. The buzz around the Eee seems to have ignited a lot of suits and bean counters to talk to their engineers to create their own low-cost ultraportable. Everex announced their Think CloudBook that will be available from Walmart.com next week for $399. At first glance, it seems like a thicker version of the Eee. But, wait, it has a 30GB hard drive and a DVI-I port at the same price as the Eee PC 4G.
But what about the so-called UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC) concept introduced by Microsoft last year? These small and generally slow devices had prices that seemed inversely related to their size and power: EXPENSIVE. A few have dipped under $1000. But, most seemed to be in the $1200 to $1500 range. This was clearly a lose-lose proposition: Small slow PCs at very high prices. UMPCs must be dead, right? That’s what I thought too until I saw the price drop for the FlipStart. With a price drop down to $699, this Windows Vista capable micro-notebook that has the rare SideNote external LCD looks like a contender now. If other UMPC makers drop their prices nearer the original $500 price announced for UMPCs a year ago, they might gain more interest.
I was all set to order an Asus Eee PC 8G model when they become available. But, I am not in a rush now. I am going to wait and see what else appears in the ultra portable scene. Who knows, some firm might actually revive the old Windows CE (Windows Mobile) Handheld PC genre again (I still use some of my old Handheld PCs for some writing projects).
In a strange ironic way, it looks like 2008 will be the year of the UMPC (Ultra Mobile Personal Computer) for everyone except Microsoft (who coined the term). One model of the Asustek Eee PC has been shipping for a couple of weeks now for a reasonable price ($399) and is getting pretty good reviews. The Amazon Kindle ebook reader with built-in Sprint PCS EVDO service became available this week. The, hmm, 4th generation Nokia N810 just started shipping. And, this model finally has a physical QWERTY mini-keyboard. The OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) is expected to ship before the end of the year. And, if you hurry, you can get opt to donate one and get one your self through their Give One Get One (G1G1) program that runs through Nov. 26. And, every one of these products is available for under $500. In fact, at $450, the Nokia N810 is the only one more than $400.
The least expensive Microsoft based UMPC I could find (although the Asustek Eee PC can run Windows XP, it is not anymore a true Microsoft UMPC any more than any of the other devices I’ve mentioned ab0ve) is $890. And, well, the world isn’t exactly breaking down doors in a rush to buy these things are they?
All of the sub-$500 non-Microsoft UMPCs have relatively limited flash RAM storage (a few gigs at most). However, there is that persistent rumor that Apple is going to announce some kind of sub-notebook at the January 2008 MacWorld in San Francisco. If true, I’m sure this will throw the UMPC world (both Microsoft and non-Microsoft) in a spin the same way the iPhone did for the phone world this past summer.
So, the question is: Can Microsoft and its hardware partners come up with an UMPC that hits the $500 price mark that was originally stated as the target price back in March 2006: Pricing will be determined by our OEM partners. We anticipate pricing in the US$599-$999 price-range. Part of our objective in creating the original reference design for the UMPC category was to engineer a platform that’s both very compact and, through careful component choice, possible to sell for $500 MSRP.
So far, they haven’t even come close to that magic number that everyone else seems to have achieved.