J.P. Morgan hardware analyst Mark Moskowitz, who is hosting a conference call regarding “ultrabook” laptops this morning, offers up a summary on his thoughts about the new style of device, which he largely views with a shrug.
The ultrabook is a class of super-thin, super-light laptop for which Intel (INTC) has invested heavily in the last 9 months to promote to hardware partners as the future of mobile PCs.
To Moskowitz, the machines are little more than a rip-off of Apple’s (AAPL) successful “MacBook Air” laptops:
Ultrabooks are not new but just a sign that the Wintel crowd is catching up with Apple. Despite increasing vendor and media focus on Ultrabooks, we do not expect the overall PC market�s growth profile to exhibit much incremental uplift as a result.
According to Moskowitz, as they try and follow Apple’s lead, the PC crowd will be humbled by attempts to get prices to the right level while offering something different to set each vendor’s wares apart.
We think that the price points of the first generation of Ultrabooks (base prices of $899-1,299) are too high. We also do not expect Ultrabooks to offer many advanced features in the near to mid term, limiting differentiation from a standard notebook PC. In our view, advanced features such as voice, touch, and improved battery life are required to stem the flow of customer dollars to smartphones and tablets.
Update: In news item Friday, 2/17, CNet‘s Lance Whitney reflected on the patent award given to Apple for a patent on technologies involved in the development of a thin laptop. Whitney wondered whether that and other patents pertaining to the MacBook Air could be used by Apple to thwart the design of ultrabooks.
No comments:
Post a Comment