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Duane Benson
After you get to a certain point in small, any additional reductions in weight ...
DMcCunney
Ultrabook sales falling short
Dylan McGrath
10/1/2012 1:11 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO—Ultrabook sales are falling short of expectations amid high pricing and lack of effective marketing, according to market research firm IHS iSuppli, which cut its forecast for 2012 sales of the ultra-thin, low-power notebook PCs.
IHS (El Segundo, Calif.) estimates that 10.3 million Ultrabooks will ship this year, down from a previous forecast of 22 million. More than half of 2012 shipments are expected to occur in the fourth quarter, IHS said.
Ultrabooks—high-end, low-power notebook PCs—have failed to achieve widespread popularity largely because of their price, which often hovers around $1,000. To achieve the speed and performance gains specified, Ultrabooks employ solid state drives, which remain far more costly than traditional hard drives.
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The reduced forecast for Ultrabook sales is a blow to Intel Corp., which conceived of the Ultrabook concept and has pumped millions into marketing the PCs. In April, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini predicted that Ultrabooks would soon hit "mainstream" price points as low as $699. But even that price point may be too high for widespread adoption amid a flood of other promising mobile computing devices like media tablets.
Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS, said in statement that the PC industry has failed to create the kind of buzz and excitement needed to propel ultrabooks into the mainstream.
"There once was a time when everyone knew the 'Dude you're getting a Dell' slogan. Nowadays no one can remember a tag line for a new PC product, including for any single ultrabook," Stice said.
IHS also reduced its forecast for 2013 Ultrabook shipments. The firm now expects shipments to rise to 44 million next year—more than quadruple the 2012 forecast, but down from an earlier forecast of 61 million.
Next: Not too late
IHS (El Segundo, Calif.) estimates that 10.3 million Ultrabooks will ship this year, down from a previous forecast of 22 million. More than half of 2012 shipments are expected to occur in the fourth quarter, IHS said.
Ultrabooks—high-end, low-power notebook PCs—have failed to achieve widespread popularity largely because of their price, which often hovers around $1,000. To achieve the speed and performance gains specified, Ultrabooks employ solid state drives, which remain far more costly than traditional hard drives.
[Get a 10% discount on ARM TechCon 2012 conference passes by using promo code EDIT. Click here to learn about the show and register.]
The reduced forecast for Ultrabook sales is a blow to Intel Corp., which conceived of the Ultrabook concept and has pumped millions into marketing the PCs. In April, Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini predicted that Ultrabooks would soon hit "mainstream" price points as low as $699. But even that price point may be too high for widespread adoption amid a flood of other promising mobile computing devices like media tablets.
Craig Stice, senior principal analyst for compute platforms at IHS, said in statement that the PC industry has failed to create the kind of buzz and excitement needed to propel ultrabooks into the mainstream.
"There once was a time when everyone knew the 'Dude you're getting a Dell' slogan. Nowadays no one can remember a tag line for a new PC product, including for any single ultrabook," Stice said.
IHS also reduced its forecast for 2013 Ultrabook shipments. The firm now expects shipments to rise to 44 million next year—more than quadruple the 2012 forecast, but down from an earlier forecast of 61 million.
Next: Not too late
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dylan.mcgrath
10/1/2012 2:18 PM EDT
Interesting to note that IHS cites stringent requirements by Intel for what can be labeled an Ultrabook. You wonder if more companies are just going to go with the generic "ultrathin."
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RandomJitter
10/1/2012 4:37 PM EDT
From July 2012,
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2012/07/apples-macbook-air-reportedly-eating-into-the-sales-of-ultrabooks/
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Daniel Payne
10/2/2012 10:50 AM EDT
Instead of an Ultrabook I use an iPad along with the Logitech Ultrathin keyboard. I get light weight, portability, detachable tablet, 10 hours on a single battery charge, lots of apps. What I miss are separate user accounts and a mouse.
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Tom Mariner
10/2/2012 12:01 PM EDT
The article has it right -- high price, lousy, opportunistic marketing, and lack of touch screens are big holes in the plan. Yes, SSD prices which are now from $400 to $500 for a needed 512 Gb device are a big culprit, but pretty soon the gazillion HDD parts vs. the handfull in the SDD's are going to show up in cratering prices.
The MacBook Air cleverly set the bar that thinner was going to cost you more and if you think that just because there is less stuff to buy, build and ship in an Ultrabook marketing types are going to forgo extra profit just for volume, you're pretending they have a soul. Pretty soon somebody is going to do a Prius to the market and price as if they were going to sell a gazillion and leave the rest of the folks looking like Chevy Volts at twice the price, half the performance and sales in the dozens.
I've got a 2.4 pound Toshiba that cost $699 -- OK performance, OK screen, but amazing to take anywhere. Now if it just had touchscreen, I'd crank in Windows 8 tomorrow.
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eewiz
10/2/2012 1:59 PM EDT
I am not surprised.
If WinTel want to beat Apple by making a Macbook Air Clone, the first thing they should consider doing is to substantially reduce the price compared to Air. I would buy an ultrabook with similar specs that of an Air at 60% of air's price.
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DCH
10/2/2012 3:52 PM EDT
There is nothing that they are offering that competes with an iPad.
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ewertz2
10/2/2012 6:55 PM EDT
vis-a-vis non-productivity, agreed.
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DMcCunney
10/2/2012 6:55 PM EDT
I believe it was Santayana who said "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."
Some here may recall the UMPC, which was a joint venture between Intel and Microsoft, based around Microsoft's Origami effort.
Both had problems - how to maintain growth and market share. The answer they came up with was a whole new platform that would use Intel chips and run Windows. It was noteworthy that the UMPC was produced by vendors like Samsung and VIA Technologies, who weren't known for complete systems, and was *not* made by laptop manufacturers like Dell and Fujitsu. The specs also seemed crafted to keep them from *competing* with laptops.
What neither Intel nor MS provided was a compelling use case for why people might get a UMPC in *addition* to what they already had, and mostly, people didn't.
The tablet essentially does what the UMPC was suggested for, but at a much better price point and with better ease of use.
The Ultrabook looks like it's intended to compete against devices in the netbook category, spawned by the ASUS eee, aimed at the higher end.
Again, where's the compelling use case? What makes one of the Ultrabooks worth $1,000 to a buyer?
Whether the Ultrabook sales are all that bad depends upon what sort of numbers Intel expected. I don't think they thought it would be an out-of-the-park home run.
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Frank Eory
10/2/2012 7:28 PM EDT
When Ultrabooks hit the same price point as ordinary laptops, they will take off. Don't hold your breath. It will be a long time before a SSD is the same price as a HDD.
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DMcCunney
10/3/2012 5:43 PM EDT
Use cases are another factor, and I think cloud computing will be a driver.
Back when ASUS created a new market for the netbook, I looked around, but no one was making what I was interested in: a model with a 10" screen and *no* HDD.
I wanted a pure SSD solution, and didn't *want* an HDD because moving parts break, and I wasn't going to be storing all that much on the device itself, so I didn't need HDD storage capacities. Anything I downloaded to the device was unlikely to stay there: the netbook was a small light travel device, but downloads would get transferred to other storage media when I was home and not traveling.
With cloud computing increasingly pervasive, and things like Google Docs more widely used, the *need* for local storage on an ultra{book|thin} drops. SSDs are still more expensive, but how big an SSD do you *need*? In my case, one large enough to hold OS, apps, and some local storage for work files and dowloads that will be transferred elsewhere. 32GB might be more than sufficient, and SSDs in that size are increasingly affordable.
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GREAT-Terry
10/3/2012 12:50 AM EDT
I think price issue is critical. Will the price of all components used inside the ultra book, including SSD and CPU drop that fast?
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Duane Benson
10/3/2012 10:22 PM EDT
After you get to a certain point in small, any additional reductions in weight will not be enough to compensate to increased cost or decreased performance. Apple gets away with it because of the cachet that goes along with it being an Apple product. Most Windows laptop vendors (if any) just don't have that ability to get away with such a price premium.
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