vnunet.com analysis: Origami/UMPC has to meet high expectations

The Ultra Mobile PC is poised to create a new category of consumer devices

The tiny tablet-like Ultra Mobile PC unveiled by Microsoft at CeBIT on Thursday is poised to create a new category of consumer devices, but could take several years to hit the mainstream. 

"It is important to separate the point products [released this week] from the compelling examples of where this is going to go," Leslie Fiering, a research vice president with Gartner covering mobile computing, told vnunet.com. "If it is going to succeed, it's going to take at least two to three years." 

Speculation about the product started last week when Microsoft released a teaser campaign about a forthcoming product dubbed Origami.

The name refers to a software application running on top of Windows XP that lets users navigate a small portable device with a fairly large screen. The hardware itself is referred to as an Ultra Mobile PC (UMPC).

The devices and software were officially unveiled on Thursday at the CeBIT tradeshow in Germany, and the first devices are scheduled to arrive later this year.

They will feature a 7in screen and a 30GB-60GB hard drive for storage, and are powered by an Intel Celeron M, Pentium M or VIA C-7 processor. Battery life is estimated to be around 2.5 hours.

Intel and Microsoft have been showing off UMPC devices over the past 12 months. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates first showed a mock-up of the device at WinHEC in May 2005.

Intel chief executive Paul Otellini first presented it at Intel Developer Forum in August 2005 and gave a first public demonstration at the Consumer Electronics Show last January.

"This is a category of devices between cellphones and the PC," Erik Reid, director of product marketing for Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, told vnunet.com during an interview at the Intel Developer Forum earlier this week. 

"We expect people to use these devices for a range of activities, such as gaming, internet surfing or watching DVDs and movies. We are taking many of the functions that you use your PC for today, but are putting it in a smaller, lighter form factor.

"And we put it in a device that combines long battery life with very good performance and the ability to tap into the PC ecosystem that is built around the x86 architecture."

• Silicon Valley Sleuth: From WinHEC to Origami: a short history of the handtop computer

But while to the general observer a UMPC might look like smaller version of a PC, it would be a mistake to describe it as such.

While it has the potential to perform all the tasks that Reid describes, it will not perform all of them. Instead users will personalise their UMPC to meet their own demands, and will buy a model that best meets those demands.

A heavy email user, for instance, is likely to purchase a unit with a built in wireless radio featuring a slide-out keyboard.

A family, on the other hand, might opt for a model with a bright touch screen and the ability to play movies, or could sign up for a subscription plan offering streaming movies over a high speed wireless data connection.

"If people perceive this as a little PC, they are not going to get it. They are going to have to perceive this as something else," Rob Enderle, principal analyst with the Enderle Group, told vnunet.com. 

"It is a device that, to a large extent, is defined by the accessories and the services that wrap it. If there is a device that could define how we live in the web 2.0 world, this is it."

Enderle has high hopes for the UMPC as a category. He cited research sugesting that consumers are looking for a device with the size, flexibility and personalisation options that the UMPC is offering.

But he warned that it is too early to declare victory. The platform is only 40 per cent done and the remaining 60 per cent has yet to be worked out, he argued.

• Silicon Valley Sleuth: From WinHEC to Origami: a short history of the handtop computer

"The trick is getting it right, because consumers have never had something quite like this before," said Enderle.

"They have an ideal of what the device should be, but it is a little different for everybody. And it has to have a lot of customisation associated with it. If successful, this will be the first device that offers mass market customisation."

Richard Shim, a research analyst at IDC, agreed that personalisation is the key to the UMPC's potential.

These features would allow the ease of use needed to unlock the broad consumer market which so far has shunned high tech gadgets because of their complexity.

"It opens up the mainstream market," Shim told vnunet.com. "This would be for folks that are not the first to adopt new technologies but could see the benefits of this one." 

In fact, the UMPC is not for gadget fans who own multiple computers and laptops and have built home networks.

While the first-generation devices unveiled this week resemble laptop computers, Shim expects them over time to evolve into something similar to a higher end mobile phone.

Gartner's Fiering typified the device as "my stuff anywhere" and claimed that the services will be more important then the actual hardware.

"If this is a hardware play, it is going to die," he said. "If it is a device that allows me to take my email or video or photos or music with me, then there is a chance that it will work."

• Silicon Valley Sleuth: From WinHEC to Origami: a short history of the handtop computer