Acer’s head T.J. Wang has stated that Ultrabook prices are definitely going to go down as the supply grows to meet the increasing demand around the launch of Windows 8.
Acer Betting Heavily On Ultrabooks Despite Tablet and Smartphone Dominance
Wang made it clear that his company is one hundred percent behind Intel’s Ultrabook initiative. They believe that even though Apple, Google and Wintel are together leading the market right now, Apple’s presence will fade over the next few years to reveal Wintel in the dominant position. According to him, this will happen mainly because of the emergence and the subsequent popularity of Ultrabooks. Their thin and lightweight ultraportable design is expected to win people over in the long run.
Not everybody is convinced though. Many have already declared that we are in the post PC era and traditional form factors are just not going to cut it anymore. Ultrabooks, despite their futuristic components and efficient design, are still traditional notebooks. What people want right now are tablets and smartphones. For the average person, those two devices can completely satisfy their daily computing needs.
Both of them are designed to be always on and always connected. Tablets are already good at surfing, reading, emailing, social networking and media playback — the main things that an average user does. Smartphones can do all of that in a smaller way. When looked at from this perspective, it becomes clear why the netbook market has been sagging so badly and why tablet sales (which are iPad sales for the time being) are going up.
Windows 8 Ultrabooks will have features like always on and connected as well as some being touchscreen enabled. They will also have super long battery life. At their sub $1000 price point (around $700), Wang is of the opinion that they will steal the market away from Apple’s MacBook Pro.
Intel will also have it own significant role to play this plan. Other than being the brand owners of the Ultrabook line, they have also developed the 22nm process made Ivy Bridge that will drive down power consumption with better performance over Sandy Bridge. Looks like the Wintel camp is going to have a very busy and eventful year ahead.
