Understanding Ultrabooks (and because they will take to win the market)

Introduction

The growth in sales of many tablets lit red lights in the headquarters of Intel. Although the tablets at least so far have not significantly impacted the sales of laptops (presumably they have impacted netbooks, but they are not a very significant source of revenue for Intel), they represent a major threat, since it is a computing platform that is rapidly becoming popular and which Intel simply can not compete at present.

Well that Intel tried to encourage manufacturers to produce tablets with the Atom running Windows 7, but the few models that were actually released (such as HP Slate 500) left to be desired, offering a range at least 50% lower than other tablets with ARM SoCs, and are heavier and losing in the item interface, since the interface of Windows 7 is far from being optimized for use in tablets.

It is even possible to use Windows 7 on a tablet if a resistive screen used in conjunction with a stylus, as they did in the past decade, but by adopting the use of a capacitive screen, things get complicated, since the use fingers is not possible to precisely control the interface elements.

It is important to remember that Intel planned to enter the market selling the Atom-based MIDs, running Moblin. MIDs will be portable devices, with or without keyboard, with screens ranging from 5 "to 7". Some models were announced, but none went on to sell more than a few handfuls of units.

The growth and invasion iPad tablet with Android caught Intel with their pants down, having to run after the injury. Occasionally, we still talk about something about MIDs, but every effort is being officially now in ultrabooks, representing Intel's response to the growth of tablets:

At first, a ultrabook is not very different from a current notebook with a screen in the house of 13.3 ", keyboard, using Windows, etc.. The difference lies more in the manufacturing techniques employed and the use of processors based on the Sandy Bridge architecture and Ivy Bridge, combined with an SSD and improvements in the software. In short, they offer a hardware architecture very similar to the MacBook Air with 1.8 or 2.1 cm thick, 1.4 kg or less and 5 to 8 hours autonomy:

In short, Intel's response to the tablets is an updated mobile platform, which uses new production techniques to get out of the plastic currently used to a metal body, light, thin and tough, combined with the performance gains offered by the use of SSD .

Although ultrabooks not compete in the same league as the tablets, they should be sufficient to attract the attention of the public notebooks, potentially convincing many to switch equipment, and represents a psychological victory, showing that the PC platform still has points where evolve.

The main obstacles are the prices and Intel's insistence on maintaining a high margin on the processors, squeezing margins for partners and making many think twice before embarking on the adventure.

The initial goal is that ultrabooks are sold at U.S. $ 1000 as a high-end portable platform. Intel has been using the term "tablet Plus", trying to sell the idea that ultrabooks offer the portability of a tablet, combined with processing power and convenience of a notebook, and so the higher price is justified. It is quite obvious that in this price range will be restricted to the ultrabooks some niches, but Intel is also facing problems in relation to the manufacturers.

The big problem is that even at that stratospheric price range, manufacturers partners will work with margins of only 10%, while Intel and enjoy more comfortable margins, selling the Core i7-2677 to U.S. $ 317 and i5-2557 U.S. $ 250 for manufacturers. Essentially, nearly half of which will be spent on material in ultrabooks will go directly into the coffers of Intel.

This represents a risk factor for manufacturers who will have to invest in new production lines to produce equipment with the body of aluminum or magnesium, with no guarantee of having the expected return on sales, still running the risk of flash memory become more expensive due the increase in demand, making the use of SSDs.

Most major manufacturers have already presented prototypes ultrabooks but still has to know what volume they will be produced.

It is quite possible that ultrabooks end up slowly gaining ground, replacing the current high-end notebooks, as manufacturers like Dell, HP and Lenovo to adopt the platform and start generating models in greater volume and other manufacturers start to produce cheaper models based on AMD processors (these will not be called "ultrabooks," but if the format is the same, no one will notice), but it will happen slowly and there is no guarantee that they actually lead to some increase in sales of PCs