someuid

September 26, 2011 at 12:39pm

I heard a different spin on this from The Tech Report's podcast in that these runs are going to be just a few hundred thousands (in other words, they might kick out 200,000 units a month, but thats for only two or three months).

Seems the runs will happen just long enough to deplete Intel's $300 million advertising seed money going back to the ultrabook makers.  Intel offered that up when the ultrabook makers asked for a 50% cut in CPU prices and Intel balked at the idea.

I think Ultrabooks are dead.  Intel is just driving the idea because (1) they see Apple selling a lot of these and (2) want to see the same thing in Windows Land because they are salivating at the sales forecast their spreadsheet is showing them.  Be honest here.  Everyone says the PC era is over because they aren't seeing massive sales increases year after year.  It is lower powered stuff that is selling like crazy - phones and tablets - the one area Intel is getting the crap kicked out of them.  So they are making this ultrabook market to push their processes.  They have a solution (their chips) and are making a problem (people want ultrabooks!) to match.

And this is what makes people buy Apple products.  Apple stuff is designed to Work Really Well with the profit motive hidden underneath, where as Intel could care less about how well our laptops, desktops, etc work, just as long as they get to sell butt loads of chips.

Before you start with the hate, I'm a windows guy through and through.  But that doesn't mean I throw myself down and the mercy of Intel and Microsoft to defend them when they are clearly shlepping along.  iOS has been out how long?  Where is Microsoft's answer?  ARM is taking the low power device market by storm, enough to get AMD and Nvidia to notice, and Intel is doing what - talking about new processors with 180 watt TDPs?