Intel Creates $300 Million Fund to Make Ultrabooks

[ProDigit10]

300 million wasted if you ask me!

 

[silverblue]

There's a new segment of portable PCs coming soon, and they're called Ultrabooks. Intel took the wraps off of the design direction at Computex 2011 for exceptionally thin-and-light notebooks that take many design cues from Apple's MacBook Air.

Cue patent wars as Apple sues another company for an extremely tenuous reason with the sole purpose of driving down supplier pricing. Cue countersuits from said suppliers concerning Apple copying other patented designs. Cue injunctions preventing the sale of said non-Apple products.

Sound familiar...?

 

[ProDigit10]

they're probably just going to equip them with corei processors that have the extruded gating design and flexible oled screens. The flexible oled screens are what drive up the cost.
On top of that, they probably will equip it with a battery that on standby gets upto 12 hours, but in usage only 4 hours!

If they want a thinner design than apple, while keeping long battery life, they'd have to equip it with over 30% of case or shell space dedicated to the battery

 

[spookyman]

[citation][nom]noob2222[/nom]OOO was developed by IBM 2 years before intel implemented itx86 is currently used as Intel's stranglehold on the market as a modern cpu can't be made without owning rights. Its also used to "borrow" from AMD anything that AMD innovates to the cpu marketunified l2 cache isn't exactly innovativeIntel innovates by spending money and ocasionally developing something new themselves. Mostly buy buying patents or letting someone else do the work. This 300M incentive is just publicized proof.[/citation]

Actually AMD, Intel, Cyrix and IBM both have rights to share the X86 architecture. Since they worked in collaboration with IBM developing the Original 8086 for the IBM PC. IBM allowed them to keep the rights and patents for the product they developed with them.

Intel's innovation was developing the microprocessor HP's calculator. Or Intel's 4004 processor.

 

[cold fire]

[citation][nom]Prince_Porter[/nom]More importantly, was it chocolate or regular milk?In all seriousness, I don't see this "ultrabook" thing taking off. I think they're putting too much faith in the product. The pitch is weak, being thin and consuming less power isn't "innovation", it's expected for laptops as they grow. I think they'll sell fine as thin, powerful laptops, but trying to pass them off as a new product is just silly.[/citation]

They want to make as much money as possible off them before they become the norm for laptops.

 

[Chewie]

[citation][nom]ronch79[/nom]So is this Intel using their money to make OEMs use its products exclusively again? I thought they already agreed with AMD to stop their underhanded, anti-competitive tricks. AMD was stupid to believe Intel will play fair.[/citation]
I don't believe for a minute that AMD ever believed Intel. But settling out of court was the best option for them at the time. They can't afford to play duelling lawyers with Intel for any length of time.

 

[jacobdrj]

[citation][nom]caedenv[/nom]Ya, so intel invests $300M in other companies and takes a portion of the rights of all of their patents and work, and likely forces them into a contract to use only their processors for the next 5-10 years... Good investment, but lets not try to pass it off as charity.[/citation]
Who says it is charity... It is good business. Intel practically invented (or discovered) and simultaneously underestimated the Netbook market niche. I think they are just looking to be prepared this time (or play catchup, depending how you look at it).

Aren't Fusion based laptops like the HP DM1Z already within the Ultrabook spec, sans Intel chip?

 

[tajisi]

[citation][nom]mikenygmail[/nom]Clearly, Intel is very worried about AMD's amazing new product, the APU which combines a CPU and GPU on one chip. Thanks to this technological breakthrough, gaming laptops are available for around $500-$600 that outperform and utterly destroy all competition anywhere near this price point.[/citation]

If you are going to channel Steve Jobs, you're required to use the word "Magical" in every other sentence, otherwise turn off the reality distortion field. Unless AMD is paying you to write product advertisements.

"Breakthrough" is a bit of a stretch since the technology for system-on-a-chip has been around for years. It's a little more fair to say that it's the first on-die GPU that's decent. Most people are not going to buy APUs for gaming. APUs will end up in Mom 'n Pop type computers and provide better Flash rendering and better movie playback.

This brings me to point number two, APU gaming. The revolution with APUs will be content and media, not necessarily gaming. In almost every test I've seen posted, the second you throw in a low end GPU (dedicated memory, dedicated bandwidth, not fighting the CPU for a share of it) the field levels.

While the power efficiency is not as good when you add a GPU(again, Llano is more aimed at media centers and content), even a basic i3 dual core will put the hurt on a quad APU. The total cost difference (gathered from a quick glance at Newegg, i3/dedicated basic GPU) is not that great.

Why would I buy Llano? To have a cheap, quiet quad core with accelerated video functions hooked up to my TV, or to buy a cheap system for my brother-in-law. He can't tell the difference between 20 FPS or 200 FPS, and as for resolution, he makes that at New Years.

My main hope is for a lower clocked, passively cooled version. Throw that in with an SSD and you can have a truly silent, capable, home theater computer.

 

[Chewie]

[citation][nom]jacobdrj[/nom]Who says it is charity... It is good business. Intel practically invented (or discovered) and simultaneously underestimated the Netbook market niche. I think they are just looking to be prepared this time (or play catchup, depending how you look at it). Aren't Fusion based laptops like the HP DM1Z already within the Ultrabook spec, sans Intel chip?[/citation]
I would suggest that it would be more accurate to describe Asus as the company that kicked off the whole netbook thing with the EeePC. What's more, the fact that the EeePC wouldn't run Vista I think had a lot to do with the stock value drop that forced Microsoft to get their heads out of their butts and produce Win7.

 

[jkflipflop98]

LOL you AMD fanfags are so funny. Still clinging to the past like it even matters.

 

[fteoOpty64]

Without any product in the smartphone and tablet market, this is the ONLY thing they can do. They have seen MacBook Air's success before but probably did not think about its price erosion on the mainstream PC market. This will push ultra-laptop to $600 price point and tablets will be around $300 or a bit less. It will sell volumes but I doubt the margin will be higher than now.
The mid-segment laptop needs a lot of work as opportunities abound. They can make a 0.8 inch thick laptop with 2 or 3 mini-pcie card slots below. This can be for SSDs, WiDI cards, LTE cards etc. Also, thunderbolt based ports.
Also, home NAS and HTPC market can be a volume game up for grabs.

 

[ojas]

I don't know what to think about the ultrabook. honestly i don't they should call it that until it's actually "ultra".
At the same time, i think ivy-bridge and later generations, esp. skylake-skymont will actually supply the battery life and performance combo that intel wants. It may have llano-like graphics too, or better. AMD should have something better too i hope. The $300-million thing is finally business if you look at it.
For people who want a Windows alternative to OSX, this may actually be good. Plus with the new SATA interfaces coming out, things will get slimmer and lighter.
What Intel will end up with may not be "ultra", but it still maybe really cool. Needless to say that AMD must continue to innovate, and today they've done much better with laptop graphics at lower price points than intel has.

I would want a super thin and light notebook that offers extreme portability and functionality, at the same time it should provide enough computing power for doing non-desktop-exclusive things. If i have to game/do professional productivity things, i'd want a desktop frankly, laptops are for less intensive work.

I just realized that ultrabooks should have something that bridges the productivity gap b/w desktops and laptops. Imagine holographic monitors popping out of the existing physical one on your super-thin high-performance, highly efficient notebook? Would that be ultra?

 

[jacobdrj]

[citation][nom]Chewie[/nom]I would suggest that it would be more accurate to describe Asus as the company that kicked off the whole netbook thing with the EeePC. What's more, the fact that the EeePC wouldn't run Vista I think had a lot to do with the stock value drop that forced Microsoft to get their heads out of their butts and produce Win7.[/citation]
Fair enough: Intel 'unwittingly' created the Netbook market by producing Atom... Without Atom, there would be no Netbook market, unless AMD was poised to make some super low voltage x86 chip circa 2008 that I am unaware of...

Check that... OLPC 'discovered' the Netbook market... I remember all the people talking about how THEY wanted a 100-200 dollar durable do-enough-to-get-by long battery life PC for themselves, and couldn't understand why they were focusing on 3rd wordl countries, when there was a market for that here...

 

[Wish I Was Wealthy]

Let's hope something comes good out of this 300 million funding and it won't be another junket idea...