Sonny, article...Intel Pushes Notebooks Toward Sub-$1,000 Hot Spot..
(03/03/98; 6:38 p.m. EST)
By Rick Boyd-Merritt, EE Times
Prices on notebook computers must come down if the mobile computer industry is to continue its growth, said an Intel executive at the Mobile Insights conference this week. But Intel is not yet ready to detail all of its plans to push notebooks into the so-called segment zero -- the sub-$1,000 market hot spot pioneered by desktop PCs last year.
"With the exception of preliminary numbers from the fourth quarter of last year, mobile computer sales have been flat," said Stephen Nachtsheim, general manager of Intel's Mobile/Handheld Products Group. That's due in part to the fact that desktop prices have plummeted in the past year, while notebooks have remained at a premium, he said. Part of Nachtsheim's prescription for the stagnant market is a strong dose of lower system prices.
"We're going to see the sweet spot drop from $3,500 to $2,500, and the more mainstream machines will go from $2,500 to $1,999," he said. "That's good for the mobile industry."
Sources in and close to Intel's group said the company plans to roll out special silicon for low-cost notebook computers next year. Nachtsheim would not comment on those plans, but said that Intel is working with partners to develop audio and modem software that will run on its Pentium II, reducing the need for sound and modem controllers and codecs in basic notebook PCs. The software will become available from third parties next year, he said.
Nachtsheim did tip Intel's near-term plans to roll out its Mobile Deschutes processors on April 2. The CPUs, built on 0.25-micron technology, sport a 1.7-volt core and a sub-8-watt power dissipation. He demonstrated a Toshiba Tecra notebook with 64 megabytes of RAM based on one of the processors, which will be offered in speed grades of 233 and 266 megahertz.
The Mobile Deschutes will be Intel's first version of the P6 processor -- initially launched as the Pentium Pro -- suitable for use in a notebook computer.
Before the end of the year, notebooks using the chips will sell for less than $2,000, Nachtsheim predicted. Others said notebooks could be configured to sell for about $1,200 next year if certain features were eliminated, such as SoundBlaster support under DOS, expansion capabilities, and other functions.
"It's going to take a lot of effort to come up with a standard for segment-zero notebooks," said Vaughn Watts, director of architecture at Dell Computer in Austin, Texas. "The real question is: What basic features can I defer or change?
"We have to take the position of budgeting for subsystems and we have to make suppliers comply with these budgets," he said.
Another developer hailed the trend for low-cost notebooks as an inevitable one, though he expressed doubts about Intel's host-software plans. "We've observed what's happened in the desktop arena and it seems logical this will extend to the notebook," said Peter Ashkin, general manager of computer systems engineering at Toshiba America Information Systems in Irvine, Calif. But Ashkin said soft modem and audio features sound like native signal processing. "This is something Intel has talked about for years, but most solutions still require significant CPU cycles to generate a modem function."
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