Intel Corp.'s crusade to redefine the personal computer is entering a crucial phase, as a new breed of sleek skinny portables jostle with tablet-style devices and smartphones for consumer attention.
A host of companies are using next week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to show off entries in a new category called Ultrabooks, a term the chip giant coined as part of an effort to spur its customers to make more desirable products.
Manufacturers expected to introduce new thin laptops at the show include Dell Inc., Lenovo Group Ltd. and Acer Inc. The products follow portables using the Ultrabook moniker from companies such as Hewlett-Packard Co., Toshiba Corp. and Asustek Computer Inc.
Making portables smaller is hardly a new idea. Backers of Ultrabooks, inspired largely by Apple Inc.'s MacBook Air, hope to take stylish designs that typically command a premium to mainstream price points. Though Ultrabooks mostly start at roughly $899 to $1,400, hardware companies expect to soon reach more consumer-friendly prices of $699 or lower.
Ultrabooks also take a page from Apple's iPad tablet computer by booting up more quickly and operating longer on a battery charge than conventional laptops. Backers expect future models to exploit touch screens, with some converting between tablet and clamshell-style configurations.
The stakes are high for many companies -- but particularly for Intel and Microsoft Corp., dominant suppliers to PC makers whose growth rates have been surpassed as demand has swelled for other kinds of mobile devices. Sales of tablets across the globe, for example, are expected to rise nearly 63% in 2012 to more than 103 million units, predicts research firm Gartner Inc. World-wide PC shipments, by contrast, are expected to rise 4.5% to about 370 million units.
Intel helped marshal a response for the broader PC industry by kicking off the Ultrabook initiative in late May at a Taiwan trade show. It has set up a $300 million venture-capital fund to support related technology companies, and is expected to boost its advertising and promotional support to PC makers to drive demand for Ultrabooks.
The chip maker expects the more attractive size and features of Ultrabooks to transform the laptop category, bolstered by plans to roll out successive generations of chips to help drive up performance and battery life. Though not many Ultrabooks are quite as thin as the MacBook Air -- which tapers from a thickness of 0.68 inch to 0.11 inch at one point -- Intel expects dimensions to shrink rapidly.
Intel predicts Ultrabooks will account for about 40% of consumer portable PC sales in 2012. IHS iSuppli sees Ultrabooks hitting 43% of world-wide notebook PC shipments by 2015.
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