14 DAY TRIAL // PC manufacturer Dell has hinted its customers that it may release an eight-inch screen sub-notebook to compete on the ultra-mobile computer market. The company has recently denied the fact that it intends to buy mobile telephony company Motorola in order to "hijack" it on the smart phone market, rather than taking an approach at small form factor laptops.
"We see mobility as a big trend. Clearly what we see is that notebook sales will cross and overtake desktops by 2009. We're one company that says the desktop will stay, but the notebook is flying high," claimed President of Dell Asia Pacific South, Paul-Henri Ferrand.
Gartner recently estimated that half the developed world's workers will be running virtualized desktops on mobile devices such as Ipod and advanced phones until 2012. This move will reflect in a dramatical dramatical decrease in mobile computers such as laptops and UMPCs. However, Ferrand thinks that smart phones and laptops will become more and more similar, as system designers are perfecting the ultimate device for mobile computing.
"Some companies have come up with low-cost, tiny notebooks and suddenly it's taking off because there is a form factor for each usage. There's a convergence of these products," he claimed. "Some work well, like the BlackBerry, but it's designed for one application: e-mail. You also have the iPod, which is primarily for music, whereas a notebook can run your Windows applications, connect to the internet and it's a pretty efficient tool. So we believe there will be an expansion of the form factor upwards and downwards."
At the same time, mobile users keep hunting smaller notebooks (such as Asustek's UMPC) that come with Linux derivatives. "Interestingly, we've seen actually that customers want bigger screen sizes. We've seen with flat panel and the notebook that customers want 17-, 18- and 19-inch screens. But they also want lighter and smaller notebooks. We can't say if we will go below an eight-inch screen but clearly there is some demand and I think consumers will lead the way in terms of smaller gadgets," continued Ferrand.