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Thursday, September 20, 2007

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Loren On What MIDs Mean for the UMPC Market

- Rob Bushway

Loren Heiny, a Microsoft Tablet PC MVP, has written up a fantastic essay on his thoughts regarding the Moorestown prototypes and the MID devices rolled out during Intel's IDF conference.

Intel is squarely marketing its platforms as a Mobile Internet Device, not a UMPC--even though they toss in UMPC support every now and then. It looks to me like Intel is moving its marketing might away from the UMPC. That's very unfortunate for those that develop and support this platform. Now some could argue that Intel hasn't done all that much to advocate the UMPC anyway. As a software developer, that would be my opinion. Outside of announcing the UMPC before Microsoft and providing some sneak peeks as various reference designs, I'm not sure what else Intel is doing in terms of UMPC evangelism. I've been at Intel events where the people don't even know one lick about UMPCs, other than some group in Intel works on them. Then again, maybe I'm looking in the wrong places.

...So why aren't these devices called UMPCs? Yes, many are smaller. Here's why: Vista isn't going to be running on the first generation ones. Why not? Vista is too big and expensive for devices like this where the no-brainer goal should be to drive down costs and yield the best experience. Instead Intel is turning to Linux.

I agree with Loren. Devices like the Moorestown prototype, the iPhone, etc are where it is going to be. I have classified my iPhone as a MID with no hesitation - it is a mobile internet device in every sense of the term. The "origami experience" has shifted to devices like these where many people believe they will ultimately take off. For Microsoft to succeed in this space they need to leave Vista behind and concentrate on a small platform OS that gives them the true freedom to innovate, hook in to the Media Center / MediaGuide streaming technologies they own, hook in to Live Mail, and design a capacitive touch UI without all the baggage that a huge OS has on it.

Continue reading Loren's thoughts on what this means for developers, Silverlight, etc.

Technorati Tags: Intel, IDF, Origami, MID, Mobile Internet Devices, iPhone

Hardware | Intel | Origami | Ultra Mobile PC

9/20/2007 12:18 PM MST

Loren On What MIDs Mean for the UMPC Market Comments [3] | Digg This | del.icio.us | Citations

Thursday, September 20, 2007 6:26:07 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Yes looks like they are dropping Vista because they basically can't provide enought power for it at a reasonable price and battery life

scoobie

Thursday, September 20, 2007 11:13:50 PM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

Intel is only going to support a stupid keyboardless UMPC concept so far.
...that is until Micorsoft starts delivering on the promise and develops a proper interface for those UMPCs with a real hanwriting recognition and develops an API for handwriting support for the applicaion developers.
UMPCs are useless in the office beyond being used as viewers of files. Until the data entry is also can be done as easily as looking at things people will say - Nice! and return back to their laptops.

Today we need keyboards. Period.

montevale

Friday, September 21, 2007 6:04:22 AM (Mountain Daylight Time, UTC-06:00)

I think the shift toward MID's is a load of crap, you might as well take your PDA's, PPC's, & Smartphones and bump up the screen size and call it a MID. Oh, I think that is what Apple & HTC did. I wouldn't call the iPhone a MID or UMPC, It's just another smartphone but not running MS PPC OS.

Last thing I want is another castrated version of Windows, or another overpriced tier you have to go to if you a certain feature that should be available in all levels. Prior to the March 2006 public announcement of the Origami project & UMPC"s, I was looking for a nice lightweight, compact, & portable PC that was still powerful enough to keep up with the latest versions of Windows.

Pocket PC did not work for me, especially with the cumbersome dependancy of a host computer to load software and exchange documents back & forth.

Anyway, I need a real PC. The UMPC is exactly the right form factor for me but it should be capable of keeping up with the latest Windows. We have the technology to do this but Microsoft, CPU/GPU manufacturers, and the PC manufacturers need to keep their focus on this direction. MID's are a cop out.

Anyway that is my opinion.

KillBill

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