Company representatives from around the world will be able to put their hands on ultra-thin laptops running on Microsoft Corp’s highly anticipated new operating system at Computex Taipei next month, one of the organizers said.
This year at Computex, visitors will see a preview of Windows 8-based Ultrabooks, said Enoch Du (杜全昌), secretary-general of the Taipei Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會), which co-organizes the world’s second-largest tech trade fair.
“Although Microsoft is very cautious about the launch, vendors in fact are ready to offer the Windows 8 devices, including Ultrabooks, tablet computers and smart handheld devices,” he said in an interview recently.
“You can put your hands on the models and use them,” Du added. “With the release of the Windows 8, there will be a big jump in Ultrabook [sales] volumes.”
In the fourth quarter of last year, the world’s top five PC vendors all introduced Ultrabook-type products, but their price tags exceeded US$1,000, making them less attractive, according to DRAMexchange Technology Inc (集邦科技).
The average notebook price is about US$650 this year, so Ultrabook prices need to dip below US$700 to be acceptable to consumers, the research firm said.
Factoring in the expected price cut, Ultrabook shipments are forecast at 20 million units this year, accounting for 10 percent of total notebook shipments, compared with 2 percent last year, it predicted.
Meanwhile, the PC industry chain will see a big change in business models, such as the integration of mobile chipsets designed by ARM Holdings PLC, which are widely used in Android-based smartphones and tablet PCs to lower power consumption, Du said.
Intel Corp, which supplies processors for Ultrabooks, has forecast that the category might be priced as low as US$599 in the second half of this year, when manufacturers use new and cheaper casing materials, such as a mixture of plastics and aluminum.
The US chipmaker projected that the new models to be launched in the third and fourth quarter would support new functions, such as touch-enabled screens and gesture sensors, which would help drive overall demand.
For this year as a whole, Intel expected Ultrabooks to account for between 30 and 40 percent of global notebook shipments, thanks to the introduction of lower-priced models.
However, Du said that 20 percent would be a more reasonable penetration rate this year, because Intel’s forecast looks more like a long-term target.
“The pricing for Ultrabooks is related to the total volume,” he said. “When the volume increases, component costs drop and then lower the retail prices, driving a virtuous cycle.”
“I’m optimistic that Ultrabooks will become cheaper and cheaper, but it will be quite difficult to see US$599 models this year,” Du said.
Last month, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) said Ultrabooks would gain more momentum in the second half of this year thanks to an increase in the supply of new chipsets and the expected launch of the new Windows system.
Asustek plans to roll out a number of new Ultrabooks priced from US$799 to US$1,999 starting in the current quarter, and the company expects the category to account for between 10 and 20 percent of its notebook shipments this year.
Separately, Acer Inc (宏碁) has reduced its Ultrabook prices to as low as US$799 in selected regions, but the price has remained too high for many consumers, compared with a price tag of between US$400 and US$500 for mainstream notebooks.
Acer projected that Ultrabooks will account for between 12 and 20 percent of its notebook shipments by the end of this year, which would be lower than the 25 to 35 percent that the company forecast earlier, because of less promotion by the industry.
Computex Taipei, to be held from June 5 to June 9, is expected to attract more than 36,000 international buyers and generate US$28 billion in business, up from US$25 billion last year, the organizers estimated.
UNCONVINCING: The US Congress questioned whether the company’s Chinese owners pose a national security risk and how the app might influence young users TikTok chief executive officer Shou Chew (周受資), confronted with an unforgiving, distrustful US Congress, tried to give answers in his testimony on Thursday that avoided offending either the US government or China. However, his evasiveness left Congress unsatisfied, with representatives hungrier than ever to punish TikTok for ties to its parent company ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動), based in Beijing. He did not bring his company any closer to a resolution. Politically, TikTok is in a tougher spot. Its executives had been discussing divesting from ByteDance to resolve US national security concerns, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. However, China this week said
Sanofi SA’s drug Dupixent succeeded in a late-stage trial for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), raising the odds that the blockbuster would be the first biologic medicine cleared to treat the lung disorder. Dupixent, which is already prescribed for asthma and some skin conditions, showed a 30 percent reduction in the rate at which patients’ COPD worsened compared with those who received a placebo during the stage-three Boreas trial, the company said in a statement yesterday. The positive data could herald a new era of cutting-edge treatments for the life-threatening respiratory affliction and provide another major boost in demand for the French
SEMICONDUCTOR EQUIPMENT: The international trade group said the sector would recover from a slump, with spending expected to rise 4.2 percent to US$24.9 billion Taiwan is to retain its position as the top spender on semiconductor front-end equipment and facilities next year, with spending expected to increase 4.2 percent year-on-year to US$24.9 billion, international trade group SEMI said yesterday. The spending forecast matches an expected recovery in global semiconductor equipment and facilities investment next year, it said. International equipment spending is to return to growth next year, SEMI said in a report, forecasting 21 percent growth to US$92 billion. The expansion would manly be driven by robust demand for semiconductors in the automotive and high-performance computing segments, the association said. “This quarter’s SEMI World Fab Forecast update
Three years after Luxembourg declared all public transport free in a bid to clear its roads of jams and cut pollution, the car is still king of the congested grand duchy. Traffic permitting, it is barely an hour’s drive from Weiswampach in the far north of Luxembourg near the German and Belgian borders to Dudelange in the south, next door to France. The wealthy country of just 650,000 people appeared the perfect place for a bold experiment — making public transport on trains, trams and buses free nationwide. However, Luxembourg, despite its lack of long-distance highways, has one of the highest rates
RSS