Communications and Technology Blog - Tehrani.com - Ultrabook Archives

Intel Finally Gets Mobile?

2012-05-17T15:08:44Z

Intel is selling its computers quite nicely into PCs and servers and although we are in a so called "post-PC era" people keep buying computers by the tens of millions. The long-term challenge is in-part ARM, the instruction-set architecture which is being turned into highly efficient chips used in most mobile devices.

The challenge of course for Intel is the typical one of disruption from below. An example is how RAID allowed inexpensive and less reliable hard drives to replace larger disks in the market.

Likewise, the ARMv8 64-bit architecture application profile was defined two months ago and at some point soon we will see these chips in the field. Moreover, expect them to rapidly go multicore if not initially. From a price/performance standpoint as well as in the power consumption arena we can surmise this processor to be something Intel should worry about. After all, companies like HP are known to be experimenting with ARM chips in their HPC initiatives.

The good news is Intel says they finally understand operators. More specifically, Herbert Weber, EMEA marketing director for mobile and communications at Intel, told Telecoms.com that they finally see the differences between mobile and the PC market.

Moreover he says Intel will begin to integrate a variety of connectivity technologies into its mobile chipsets such as WiFi, GSM, GPS, LTE.

But it isn't like companies like Broadcom haven't been doing the same thing for many years, allowing them to grow more quickly as mobile supplier. Moreover, Intel started to integrate GPUs and WiFi onto CPU chips and motherboards many years ago - certainly this isn't a new concept.

It is obvious the main problem Intel has keeping it from becoming a dominant mobile supplier has been and will continue to be size and power consumption and to that end Weber had this to say:

We have made significant improvements into our design and architecture and now we don’t need to hide behind anyone in terms of battery lifetime of our phones and power consumption. We are now on par with where the market is today and we intend with our next devices – the Maryville chipset going to 22nm and the next wave of chips coming in the 14nm platform – to be better than the rest of the market in terms of power and battery lifetime.

Although Intel has given up much of the mobile market its efforts in the Ultrabook space have been fantastic and in my opinion severely under-reported by the media in general. Intel finally seems to get the concept that if they don't make more efficient chips their days will at some point be numbered. And based on my usage of a Asus UX31 Zenbook Ultrabook, I can tell you that Intel has come a long way.

In fact this powerful yet featherweight computer lets me work for about 9 hours without wireless turned on and with the screen pretty dim.

But they better keep going as Apple is likely looking for ways to switch entirely to ARM to lower its costs as it makes its own processors already for the iPhone and iPad.

There is no way to know Apple's future plans for sure but Intel is keenly aware that the loss of the fastest market-share gaining computer platform won't be good for its company or share price. And once we start to see these chip roll outs being released as planned, we can believe that Intel finally does really get mobile.

Ultrabooks Finally Get Needed Attention From Intel

2012-05-04T20:55:11Z

Intel is running a new ad touting the long-lasting Ultrabook which has hours of battery life. And while I applaud Intel for finally acknowledging this category needs marketing I am still at a loss. You see battery life is one of the features which makes a MacBook great and so is the wonderful design. We all know Ultrabooks exist almost exclusively so PC makers can compete with Apple.

So this being the case why do all the Ultrabooks except the ones from Asus and possibly Samsung look like absolute crap? In other words if you are competing with Apple - do it properly and design something which looks as good as it can look.

Dell recently had strong sales of its XPS 13 Ultrabook (pictured) and to be fair, it too is certainly one of the better looking devices on the market. Perhaps the company's success will light a fire under the rears of HP's designers. And Best Buy for that matter - do they realize this is a new and emerging category? Remember what I said about the retailer this past December? Here is a reminder:

I was in a local Best Buy last week and this past weekend and I spent some time with the salesman in the Apple portion of the store. I queried him as to how many people are asking him about Ultrabooks and he said there is no comparison as they get viruses and have no SSDs. His lack of knowledge about the new models from companies like Lenovo, Toshiba and Asus which do indeed have SSDs surprised me. After all Best Buy had the Asus and Toshiba on display no more than fifteen feet away. You figure any salesperson would know what the competition was doing. And you guessed it – the salesperson worked for Apple, not Best Buy.

The Ultrabook category while superhot to the people in the know is not known much outside the bleeding-edge - yet. Many techies I know in fact have never heard of them. Moreover, Best Buy markets Ultrabooks like they were dog droppings. The salespeople don’t know much about them. There is no sign pointing to them as special – or at all different from laptops and notebooks. Most consumers in the store in fact avoided them as they sat in relative obscurity.

It is really inexcusable for Best Buy to have such poor marketing for a killer category of product with potentially higher margins than many other products in the store. Moreover, these devices are perhaps the biggest reason to visit the store – besides perhaps checking out the latest flat screen TVs.

In May of 2009 I praised Dell for launching a high-end stylish line of computers called Adamo. At the time I said:

So my advice to Dell would of course be to move up market. Go after Apple head-to-head. Give those people who want an ultra-thin Mac laptop a way to get the sleekness of a Mac with the ability to run Vista.

In the same entry I disagreed with Chris Dawson at ZDnet who said the economy is not ready for a laptop which is so expensive. Well Adamo didn't make it so Chris either was right on, partially right or there was a marketing/execution problem from Dell which caused the company to withdraw this product at a later date.

Funny thing - I am not sure the economy is really that much better nowadays but at least the cost of Ultrabooks seems to be generally under $1,000 which is far more palatable.

So hats off to Intel for starting the marketing blitz for Ultrabooks - now the war with Apple is on. Let's see if the momentum at Dell continues and whether other computer makers will be able to see similar amounts of growth. And let's hope these computers start to look even better so future Intel ads can actually brag about how good they look and sleek they are.

Is the Post-PC Era a Myth?

2012-04-16T14:26:59Z

The way one should interpret the term "Post-PC" is "after PC" - implying that the world has changed from era to the next. Sarah Perez at TechCrunch does an admirable job of laying the case for what she calls the Post-PC era or alternatively - "PCs Everywhere" which I agree isn't quite as catchy.

In her article she discusses how Apple sold 37M iPhones in Q4, 15% of the official PC market is made up of tablets (mostly iPads) and Apple is now the leading "PC" vendor. Moreover smartphone shipments last year hit 487.7M while PC shipments hit 414.6M and the smartphone growth rate is 63% versus 15% for PCs.

So one would imagine once again that the phrase "Post-PC" means that there aren't going to be more PCs sold.

Gary Kim writes on IP Carrier that while global tablet sales are growing at 98% YoY for 2012, the PC market is expected to increase 4.4% and will increase to 10% in 2013.

The catch is - and there is always a catch, that most of these sales will be in emerging markets and will be for more portable computers - laptops, ultrabooks, etc. Kim makes the argument however that tablets may be 42% of total PC sales by 2016 - a staggering percentage.

The trend is clear however that portability and style trump virtually everything else when it comes to the tech space. And moreover although the PC space is growing - it is in-part because tablets are being factored in.

So really the proper explanation for what is happening is we are entering a post - bland, nontransportable PC market phase. Let's just call is "Post-PC" for short.

A Contrarian View on The Apple/Foxconn Labor Situation

2012-04-05T18:49:17Z

A few weeks back when the New York Times wrote a story regarding workers making iPhones and other devices in China who aren’t being treated very well, I wondered, this is a story? In other words, is there a person on the planet who doesn’t know that working conditions in China are far worse than they are in the US?

And I absolutely respect the right of the New York Times to run such a story – I just think it shows a broader agenda of being anti-capitalist, and anti-business. After all, we in the US have been buying Chinese products made by people in poor working conditions for decades. Why write this story now? Let’s stop for a moment and consider that if conditions in China are so poor for workers, then why are they working? In other words, they must be worse off – likely far worse off if they don’t have their Foxconn jobs.

The end result of this piece however is that wages across the manufacturing sector – starting with Apple will increase.

The problem is if you are truly worried about Chinese workers you should be concerned to see this happen because as costs for workers rise, the cost of automating gets a better return on investment. In other words if it may have taken seven years to pay back a robotics investment just a few months ago, now it may take just four years.

And guess what… When robotics becomes more prevalent, there will be less jobs meaning many of these workers will have to go back to living in conditions they escaped by working at Foxconnin the first place.

It is worth pointing out that in the US , minimum wage laws have made the ROI on self-scanning equipment at supermarkets better so guess what… There are less people working. The same sort of thing will happen in China.

Of course the situation is not so cut and dry as more and more manufacturing is moving to China meaning workers will likely have steady work for some years.

It’s worth pointing out that what will happen as a result of higher wages in China is Mexico and other countries will become a more logical place to manufacture. As I pointed out last year call center jobs in the US have been increasing because wages in India are rising – but in that case it is the free market working.

Seeking Alpha has an article out today which describes how Apple has made a brilliant move by increasing the wages of its workers because its margins are the highest in the industry. In fact their net margin is 24% while the next highest computer makers are HP and Dell at 5.6% followed by Nokia at around 4.4% and Amazon at 1.3%.

The point they make is the rest of the industry will be squeezed by this move.

The challenge with this line of thinking is if the cost of an Apple product is about twice that of a non-Apple product (of course this isn’t always the case) then these other companies can raise prices and still be far cheaper than Apple.

So while we can applaud the fact that workers in China will be faring better, lets keep in mind that abruptly changing things like inputs costs in the manufacturing sector could have far-reaching implications like inflation for the markets where Chinese good are shipped as well as the potential for more robotics to be used to eliminate the workers altogether.

To get a sense of what I mean, see how Kiva Systems robots operate - Amazon just purchased the company.

Samsung Galaxy Note Shipping at a Million a Month

2012-03-28T18:57:20Z

Samsung did something unusual recently when it launched its Galaxy Note line of tablets starting at 5.3" and growing from there to a 10.1" edition which was unveiled at MWC 2012 in Barcelona. What was perhaps most unusual was the hybrid nature of the smaller device, allowing it to be not quite smartphone and not quite tablet. The challenge with such a design is that you have potentially created a Jack of All Trades and Master of None or basically a tablet too big to be used with one hand and too small to be used effectively with two hands.

To some degree I see the smaller 5.3" model appealing more to men because well men don' generally carry handbags. Point being you can fit the smartphone which could have been conceived by Lane Bryant in your pocket and have ample surface area to work on.

Then there is the smart pen or S-Pen which allows special functions to be evoked like screen copy and more - expect new apps to take advantage of the S-Pen capabilities according to the company.

So think about it - with the Galaxy Note line, Samsung designed not only a new form factor in hardware but also brought back the stylus - the exact same pointing instrument which Steve Jobs and Apple thought wasn't necessary.

Now it is way early to proclaim these devices a massive and lasting success in the market because the marketing push the company has been making is extraordinary. Witness the banner at CES and the pop-up booth in the middle of Barcelona at the time of MWC 2012.

Point being that such a massive marketing blitz could pump sales for a while but after a few million units the device will have to be really a "must have" to get to 10 and eventually 100 million in sales. Assuming this latter figure is even attainable.

For years I have asked, can anyone else other than Apple can innovate and recently, Samsung has shown it can. I should give credit to Asus as well - their Zenbook UltraBooks have raised the bar in laptop design as well.

But for much of the the rest of the tech space, design innovation is lagging - except perhaps at Sony. If Samsung can continue to take share in the market with the Note and other devices with non-Apple-like form factors, it will hopefully give confidence to the rest of the field that innovation and design are essential factors in being a successful tech company.

Disclosure: I own Apple shares

AirWatch Highlights MDM in a Post-PC Era

2012-03-08T22:19:58Z

Yesterday Apple CEO Tim Cook showed a chart of how the iPad alone is selling more unites than PCs from any other individual vendor. This is an amazing achievement when you consider the iPad is a few years old and that HP swallowed up Compaq making it the largest vendor in the PC market. Of course with so much device proliferation the question of mobile device management or MDM has to rear its head. As this market is so crucial I am happy I had a chance to sit with Alan Dabbiere the charismatic Chairman of MDM leader Airwatch at MWC 2012.

A good part of our meeting centered around Dabbiere explaining how dominant his company is in the space – with over 500 employees and over 2,000 customers. He went on to say companies like Apple have to share the details of their new products to MDM vendors in advance and they want the market to consist of fewer large vendors. Other growth data points worth noting are the company has seen sequential MDM growth numbers between 30-100% in each quarter in 2011.

Moreover, the R&D team is now 175 people with R&D expense running at about 25% of revenue – a healthy number. Some of the differentiating features the company touts are support for all major OS versions as well as scalability, intelligent notifications, an SDK, an HTML5 console, an enterprise app catalogue and a multi-lingual console.

What Dabbiere spent considerable time discussing is the company’s secure content locker which allows anyone with console access to push content to selected users. What differentiates this solution from emailing content is the inability for users to subsequently take ownership of the content and forward in an unauthorized manner.

A real world example of how it works is adding a tab in the content locker which is sent to the board of directors just prior to a board meeting and then recalled the documents after the meeting is over. In another case an investment bank can use this solution to push research reports to clients without fear of them being able to forward these proprietary research documents to brokers at rival banks.

Of course I know your next question – in the case of a company pushing out content to non-employees – can the locker be branded by the company? The answer is yes. So Goldman Sachs could brand their own content locker and tabs which their clients can access but not copy or forward.

The final use case he shared was more esoteric but certainly helpful if you at a theme park in Orlando in August. Let’s assume you run a theme park where characters with big ears are prominently displayed and you would like to get email addresses for all your visitors but they likely don’t want to share this information with you as they fear spam. So instead you ask them to download a free app which includes a park map and then notify them when a ride is under or over crowded. Utilizing GPS of course would help you target visitors before they head to a part of the park which is overflowing with people.

Likewise you can use the app to help manage restaurant capacity – in other words you can send coupons to restaurants which are under crowded to ensure visitors are more evenly dispersed throughout the part. Another idea is if the park is experiencing capacity issues at all restaurants at the same time you can send a coupon to guests telling them it will be honored at a later time like say 1:00 pm.

Mobile device proliferation isn’t slowing down and neither is the need to manage and control the content on all these devices. One can imagine the MDM space and AirWatch have significant room to grow for the foreseeable future. At the moment the application is available on iOS and Android support should be here in a month with PC access available in the next 3-6 months.

Logitech Zagg iPad 2 Keyboard: Do You Need a Laptop?

2012-02-14T17:00:11Z

A few months back I was in Boston interviewing a number of companies in the tech space and just before one of my interviews I was reading about the Logitech Keyboard Case by ZAGG for iPad 2 and I was intrigued. I thought having a real keyboard connected to the iPad 2 was a great pain reliever for my fingers which ache when hitting glass repeatedly but I worried the addition would limit my ability to use the tablet while standing. Quite often in my office I find myself using the iPad and I figured a fixed aluminum keyboard would make this practice cease.

Owen DeLong of Hurricane Electric is an iPv6 evangelist but I found him equally good at evangelizing why I needed a bluetooth keyboard from Zagg for my iPad 2. At first I wasn’t convinced and instead thought the new TouchFire silicon keyboard would be the best choice for my aching fingers. I even wrote about my decision to buy this keyboard and Owen commented that the beauty of the bluetooth Logitech option was you could view the entire screen while typing.

My interview with Owen Delong

He is correct and at that point I decided to purchase the Logitech as well. After charging the device via Micro-USB for over an hour you get a few weeks’ worth of battery life with light to moderate use. The case is great because it uses the magnets of the iPad and turns the tablet off when the case is used and wakes up when the tablet is lifted out of its aluminum semi-cocoon.

I feel comfortable enough with the case that I feel somewhat OK leaving the iPad in the trunk – something I would never do with the standard Apple case attached.

If there is a downside to the keyboard it is battery status information. It would be great to know when the battery was at 20% for example. There is a status light which blinks when power is low but with 2-weeks of use on a single-charge, most users will see no need to turn the keyboard off – except when they charge it. Moreover, the status light is hidden from view when the iPad 2 rests in the case.

One final challenge is if you put the iPad 2 in the case with the wrong orientation, the screen does not turn off. You have to remember to line up the hole in the case with the hole on the iPad where the 30-pin dock connector is.

Last week at ITEXPO my primary laptop died leaving me with just the iPad and Zagg combo. I certainly wasn’t as efficient as I would be with a laptop – in-part because it is easier to delete large amounts of email on the PC using Remote Desktop connected to an office machine. Moreover, finding old email on an iPad is a slow process for someone who has a very large mailbox. But the iPad was an acceptable replacement for my regular machine – which is pretty scary actually.

I say scary because many people may not see the iPad as a proper alternative to a laptop but I have found it to be a worthy replacement for much of what I do. Obviously the ability to run Flash is still an issue but the flipside is not having to worry about battery life throughout a typical day. Moreover, the iPad seems more socially acceptable on the table at lunch, in meetings and other places where a laptop may get you dirty looks.

As you can imagine, in exchange for the ability to have a more pleasant typing experience and producing content more quickly, I am no longer able to easily use the iPad while standing and/or walking. It is not impossible - just a bit awkward.

The keyboard/case combo will set you back $100 on the Zagg site, about $80 including shipping on Amazon and a refurbished unit will cost you $50 including shipping on Meritline. I have used Meritline quite often in the past and never had a problem but never bought a refurb from them. Quantities are limited according to the company so you may want to act fast.

A Dream for Alan Harper - iPads Do Increase Chiropractor Visits

2012-01-26T19:26:48Z

When the iPad was released I penned a piece titled iPad Neck – Ouch! Because I had such a neck ache, I had to see a chiropractor. Just over a year and a half later I came across a report on TMCnet which explains that yes, indeed, I am not alone. Researchers have found that prolonged use of tablets as opposed to desktop computers has led to not only pain in people’s necks but their shoulders as well.

The reason has to do with how the screen is positioned. With a desktop or laptop your head is generally up, facing forward as opposed to when you use a tablet and your head is tilted down. This is similar to reading a book which you put on the desk directly in front of you. But the book can be lifted – a tablet has to stay in front of you when you type.

What I can tell you is that my chiropractor was very happy with Apple and I was one of a few patients she was working with within a few weeks of the release of the iPad 1. And with the news that Apple sold more iPads than any computer vendor sold computers, we can expect the chiropractic business to do well for years to come. Do the writers of Two and a Half Men know about this by the way? At this rate Alan Harper will have more money than Walden.

Much to the dismay of Mr. Harper however – researchers advise you not use the tablet as a computer replacement – because if you do, you may potentially end up in a seedy chiropractic office in the San Fernando Valley.

Woz, I Agree. Now What if the Samsung Galaxy Note Ran iOS?

2012-01-17T20:06:47Z

In July of 2010 I penned a piece about the ensuing marketshare loss Apple could face as a result of repeating the same mistake from the eighties in which it tightly coupled hardware and software while other companies were free to innovate on hardware alone. In a post titled Is Is Apple Repeating its Mistake from the Eighties? I explained how the thinness and lightness of the Motorola Droid X won me over in a few minutes. In December of 2010 I followed up with And Then it Hit Me, Open Always Wins and a few months back with Apple Screwed Again?

I witnessed firsthand how in the eighties the price/power curve of the PC clones helped make PCs much cheaper than Macs of equivalent power and over time as a result, software developers once loyal to Apple switched over to the PC. The Mac was superior to the PC in most every way except cost – the reality was though that most people would take 80% of the usability for 50-60% of the price or perhaps less.

A huge and imposing banner promoting the Samsung Galaxy Note at 2012 CES

Fast forward to today – there are quad-core 4G Android smartphones with better screens and battery life than an iPhone 4s and they are gorgeous. The Samsung Galaxy Note is just example one example of an Android smartphone on steroids – it supports HSPA+ up to 21 MBPS as well as 4G LTE has a breathtaking 5.3” WXGA HD Super AMOLED screen displaying yes a staggering 1280x800 pixels. The iPhone 4S has a resolution of 960x640) Although it has just a 1.4 GHz dual core processor it pulled up web pages at CES lightning fast and moreover can accept stylus input making it really part tablet, part smartphone and part paper notebook. Moreover it uses what the company calls an advanced smart pen which I saw in action allowing you to press a button to take a screen shot and circle a portion of it to copy and share.

So if you thought there was device consolidation, you would be wrong. In fact the 5.3” device which fit nicely in my shirt pocket is the newest must-have gadget to add to your collection of smartphones, tablets, laptops and PCs and Ultrabooks. But the cool thing about the Galaxy Note is not only the device but the fact that Apple didn’t come out with it.

You see, in the last five years the tech world has been ruled by Apple. Even faithful blackberry users who would never abandon a keyboard are being spotted in Apple stores the world over as they get wooed by the Apple sex appeal of sleek devices coupled with sleek software and speech recognition software which still needs a lot of work.

Who invented the touchscreen smartphone? Apple. Who invented the tablet that people actually wanted – with touch input? Apple. The laptop that weighs a few pounds and lasts a day on a single charge – no not the Ultrabook companies, Apple with its MacBook Air. But this new 5.3" form factor didn’t come from Apple and while my critics will be quick to point out – this device is not a big deal, I would argue it is. After all the iPad is just a large iPod Touch – the 5.3” form factor device with the smart stylus is new. It’s fresh. It’s different and it is the perfect hybrid device because it fits in a shirt pocket comfortably and allows near-tablet size video consumption.

This brings us to Woz – the Apple cofounder who says he is a big fan of Android phones – and here is the interesting part – he describes what I have been saying for years:

There’s a theory that Android could do to iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system) what Microsoft Windows did to the Macintosh in the 1990s. Microsoft triumphed because it licensed its software to many different hardware makers and ultimately had much greater market share than Apple, which would only sell its operating system on its own hardware.

In the mobile space, Apple is using the same playbook, tying its software tightly to its own hardware. And with Android, Apple is facing the same kind of foe that it once faced in Windows. “I can see the similarity,” Woz says.

Worse yet, this time, he says, Apple is up against a stronger competitor, since in his mind Windows was never a very good program, while Android actually is. “There’s not as big a difference [between iOS and Android] as there was between Mac and Windows,” he says.

The question is what can Apple do about it?

The company has dabbled with allowing clones but pulled back the experiment after a short time.

In my opinion if it was to go forward with allowing hardware makers to get a crack at its software – it may want to try working with one company at a time. I’ve used Samsung as an example throughout this piece – why not get the iOS running on the Galaxy Note?

Sure I understand the negative ramifications from Apple’s perspective but the company is losing share left and right already to the Amazon Kindle Fire – eventually Cupertino could end up being in a situation where it is too late to change course. We saw that the last time Apple started to lose share to Windows and Intel – the question is whether the company has enough innovation up its sleeve to keep the cutthroat competition in the dust.

Disclosure: I own Apple shares

CES, Ultrabooks and Lowered Expectations

2012-01-08T20:40:43Z

It has been a few years since I have been to CES and I have to be honest, I have never seen the kind of lowered expectations for an event. There have been numerous stories from mainstream publications this past week telling us not to judge the future of the industry based on what the hot product at the show happens to be. For more see the end of this article.

While on the one hand this is good advice backed up by lots of flops like the Microsoft and HP tablet of a few years back that was supposed to be an iPad killer but was never released.

I’m wondering if it is just me who is skeptical about new technology in general. In other words CES or not you never really know if something is going to be the next big thing. Even when we are sure as an industry that a technology will take root, we have seen timing and other factors are more important than being an early player.

So just because 3D technology which was a hot trend at CES a while back is not mainstream it doesn’t mean it won’t be. Skype was way late to the VoIP game – MagicJack even later but both became successful examples of IP communications technology – a space left for dead by the majority of investors after the nuclear winter in telecom of late 2000.

This brings us to Ultrabooks – a topic I cannot be more delighted to discuss. Without a doubt this will be a major theme of this event and moreover I am writing this post on an ASUS Zenbook Ultrabook and love this device. How much? I am out here at CES this week and when I leave the room and don’t take it, I leave it in the safe.

The Asus is like a piece of jewelry – a fine watch as they say. In case you didn’t read my last post on the matter the keyboard is something I haven’t totally adjusted to – it lacks travel and forces you to hit it harder than normal to ensure all your letters appear on screen.

For a few years now we have heard the term consumerization of IT and to me this means bringing in really cool and trendy devices such as iPhones, Android smartphones and tablets into a company – and merging this with a wave of new software and applications designed to take these consumer tools and make them business tools.

While Ultrabooks are pretty much powerful laptops in sleek packaging – nothing new in terms of operating system or even software for that matter, they perform a slightly different function. They bring the power of desktop computing to tablet form factor. In other words these devices are the MacBook Airs of laptops. Having spent a fair amount of time in various Apple stores – my most memorable time was at the one on Greenwich Ave in Connecticut where a father gave his daughter a choice between the MacBook Air and the iPad.

I spent some time watching her go back and forth as she made the decision.

We all understand that there are big differences between these devices – one has hundreds of thousands of free apps which run on it from the app store – many of course have been written because the same tablet device doesn’t run Flash. The MacBook for its part is more powerful, has a bigger screen, etc.

But the point is the Ultraboook is the PC version of the MacBook Air meaning that if the MacBook Air is a serious competitor to the iPad then the Ultabook is the biggest threat to tablets in general.

Now the Asus I am using costs just a bit less than $1,500 and an Amazon Kindle Fire will set you back only $200. A big difference. Still there are worthy Ultrabooks on the market from the likes of Toshiba for $800. In fact the Toshiba is thinner than this Asus but the lack of bluetooth and less impressive screen resolution may be deal breakers for power users.

So to me this week at CES where a number of new Ultrabooks are expected is about not only innovation and design but competition.

I have spent my life in technology and have seen how competition has driven down prices incredibly – especially when Moore’s Law is thrown into the mix. In high school I wrote all the programs for TMC’s computers – they were all on a proprietary UNIX system but when it came time to migrate to a more powerful computer I hand-built a PC with an AMD processor running SCO UNIX – the price was much much lower and this new server was a monster in terms of disk space and processing power. The company which had sold us the proprietary UNIX system was named ZILOG and closed in the eighties at some point no doubt because proprietary has a tough time competing with open.

We are seeing the same thing happen in the Android ecosystem – it happened in the PC market, with laptops and numerous other spaces.

And it will happen to Ultrabooks. In a year a Zenbook equivalent to what I am using now will likely cost $899 or less.

So yes, trends in tech are tough to nail down – especially when it comes to timing. But the Ultrabook is evolutionary as much as it is revolutionary and as great as tablets are they really stink at doing things you need a PC for – they aren’t wonderful for content creation for example – switching windows on an iPad is still tedious as compared holding the Alt button and hitting Tab repeatedly.

And then there are the websites – how many times have I tried to complete an ecommerce transaction on a tablet from RIM or Apple only to find the formatting is not designed for a tablet and I have to wait to get to a PC to do it right.

The price discrepancy between a Kindle Fire and Ultrabook is massive a 4x differential or in my case 7.5x.

But we are at the beginning of a new subcategory of product and unless you believe the consumerizaion of IT is just a fallacy you better realize and quick that your executives will be asking about Ultrabooks soon. Moreover a gift to corporations may come in the form of more users buying their own Ultrabooks and bringing them to work – saving companies who allow foreign equipment into the mix a good amount of money.

So sure, lower expectations all you want. But from where I stand, Ultrabooks are a must-have at this price point – just wait until the competition heats up this week at CES.

For more see articles relating to products unveiled at CES and how they have failed:

The 'CES curse?' Gadget show has poor record, AP, Peter Svensson
CES not always the greatest guide for commercial success, CNET, Roger Cheng

Asus Zenbook Ultrabook Impresses

2012-01-03T21:17:50Z

I haven’t been afraid to share with my readers that the Ultrabook has the ability to breathe tremendous life into the PC market and moreover reduce the enthusiasm for Apple products which tend to be sleeker and seem to look more like art than they do traditional computing devices.

There are a number of Ultrabooks on the market but I believe one of the best has to be the Asus Zenbook because the computer not only look better than the others on the market, the specs are quite solid and better than most.

Just before a road trip to Boston I got a hold of the ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH72 and while in the car I treated this laptop as if it was my extremely powerful Dell Precision 4500 device – an eight-core monster of a computer with a Core i7 Q840 1.87 GHz processor and 8 GB of RAM and the Asus performed better or just as well in most every way.

First off the Dell has an extra battery connected to it and in real life I can get about 6-7 hours out of the machine on a bright screen setting. In exchange for this processing power and battery life I get to lug around a 15 inch laptop which weighs in with its extra battery at a whopping 9 pounds. Without the extra battery we are still talking 6 pounds and 13 ounces. The power cord adds another 1 pound and 7 ounces. And it comes with a Windows Experience Index of 5.9.

Contrast this to the Asus which also has an Core i7 processor – a 3677M running at 1.8 GHz and a Windows Experience Index of 5.7. The Dell gives off heat in massive quantities and if you leave it on by accident and place it your laptop bag for an hour you swear the bag is about to catch fire when you open it.

The Ultrabook for the most part is cool. It boots instantly and is comfortable on your lap and the power cord is only slightly larger and a bit heavier than an iPad charger.

While riding in the car for many hours I was able to blog and work as if I was at my office. I didn’t detect any flaws. The 13.3 inch screen is smaller than I am used to on a laptop but bigger than a tablet so it wasn’t as big of a shock as I thought it would be. Interestingly Digium founder Mark Spencer told me years back that a smaller laptop is a pleasure to use and although it took me many years to listen – he is right.

If you want a smaller version still of this Ultrabook it also comes in a 11.6 inch variety with a screen resolution of 1366x768.

The applications I used most for testing were web browsers as well as Remote Desktop and Microsoft Word. The screen resolution is much better than the smaller model at 1600x900 and at this resolution some web pages were tough to read causing me to increase the size of the text using the Control Plus combination. Even though the computer is small, it still has lots of connectivity options such as Bluetooth 4.0, a USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 port, audio jack, microHDMI, miniVGA and an SD card reader.

The company says battery life is greater than seven hours and while using WiFi heavily and on a fairly bright screen setting I got about 5.5-6 hours in my usage of the past few days.

This Asus also has a SATAIII SSD which is 256GB in size and it is much faster than a spinning hard disk. When you open the lid from sleep mode the machine comes back in a second. Turning on the machine from shutdown allows you to get to the Windows logon in 16 seconds based on my testing.

And the screen gets very bright – even with bright sunlight on it I was able to work without effort and moreover my leg didn’t feel like it was being seared by the laptop which gave off once again – almost no heat. Then there is the sound – it is incredible, designed by Bang & Olufsen ICEpower – it may be the best I have ever heard come from a laptop. But still, the bass level is not really there so don’t think you can replace your home stereo with an Ultrabook – at least not yet.

Complaints I have heard from others are that the power cord going into the device and screen are flimsy. Neither is true. This is a solid device. Moreover, every aspect of this computer has a parallel in the Apple world. The box is just like an Apple box. The manuals, the brown sleeve for the computer and cords – all could have been designed by Apple.

And yes, it is thin – 3mm at the front and just 9 mm at the rear. It is so thin in fact it is sharp in the front at the edges. Not gash your wrists sharp but uncomfortable if you press against them.

The downside to the laptop is the Chiclit keyboard which doesn’t have the travel of a traditional keyboard because there is no space for travel due to the thinness of this computer. So after hours of typing you will feel more fatigue on your fingers than with a desktop keyboard for example.

The wow factor is there – many people are blown away with how good it looks – my wife thinks it will be worth her while when they make it in white though. Ah the power of Apple marketing. Others in my office have already started calling it Rich's toy - which to me shows the Zenbook has crossed the chasm like Apple from computing device to consumer electronics must-have gadget. And it is worth reiterating once again, this is a serious business device with serious speed and capacity - its looks are deceiving.

And the design of this Ultrabook more than makes up for its lack of white color – it has a spun metallic top which looks more like a fine watch than a PC. And that is the goal the company was trying to achieve. Boy did it ever.

Another compliant I read online was too many applications were loaded on the Zenbook – there is one which allows cloud storage and another which allows face logins. I have been trying the face login system for a few days on the less secure setting and it is good – I have had problems with it working under certain lighting conditions and all I have to do is add those conditions into the database and it then has no problems recognizing me. This is a really solid software addition to an already good product.

At Amazon this machine costs $1,450 which is a good price for an executive computer but then again Asus doesn’t have the name of Sony or Apple. The company’s website is a blend of high-end design with poor grammar. In other words the Zenbook is a really solid computer but the company has roots as a netbook maker and is trying to move upmarket.

In my opinion the Zenbook has moved forward dramatically from the company’s other products and reputation but the company's outward messaging needs to be upgraded as well.

I recommend the Zenbook wholeheartedly – I have used it as the device I carry under my arm instead of the iPad all day and it has made me infinitely more productive. And yes, it is a solid competitor to the MacBook Air.