Ultrabook Lights Individual Cloud Battle

Ultrabook is just the fuse of IT cross-border war. The real war is its initiative to compete with the smart phone and tablet computer in the cloud war to control the Internet of Everything. In this personal cloud battle, in fact, the hardware is the starting point. Not the end.

Before you talk about the ultrabook, you must first name it. The Chinese version of the English ultrabook is "Ultrabook," not the "Superbook" in the eyes of most people. Although it is only a name, it is pinned on Intel's biggest expectation of it: This is not a thin and powerful laptop product, but an extreme product, not just super but ultra.

Due to the rapid rise of smart phones and tablets, Intel, one of the leaders of the wintel camp, has also been robbed by ARM and Qualcomm of a lot of limelight. In the field of personal mobile Internet terminals, smartphones and tablets have almost replaced laptops as the best terminals. , And the most critical is that ARM and Qualcomm will grab the limelight while also eroding the market that originally belonged to Intel.

The birth of the Ultrabook is to recapture the position of the best mobile Internet terminal and return to the center of the personal cloud computing terminal.

The ultra-pole and ultra-heavy ultrabook of the shoulders and shoulders was born in 2011 when smartphones were most popular. Whether it was the size of the industry chain or the ultimate paying consumer, the eyes of the whole world were on the smart phone. This made it even more sad for PC companies who had a slim profit margin.

In this industrial context, Intel put forward the concept of Ultrabook Ultrabook at the end of May 2011 at Computex (Taipei International Computer Show), and boldly proposed that it will occupy the consumer laptop market segment by the end of 2012. 40% of them.

In fact, even without Intel’s banner of ultrabooks, the light and thin is the only way for laptops to break through. It is just that this is just a competition among PC manufacturers. Portable notebook is only one of the end product lines. Category, but with the introduction of the concept of ultra-pole, under the active advocacy of Intel has become a collective behavior of PC manufacturers to counter the tablet.

What kind of product is Ultrabook? Enable Intel to take advantage of the power in the industry chain. The answer from Intel to this publication is: "The biggest difference between ultrabooks and modern laptops is that they combine the performance and functionality of today's laptops with some of the features of tablet-like devices. End users will feel that when needed, The Ultrabook can be used both as a tablet PC and as a PC.” Intel believes that Ultrabook is a product that can redefine the computing experience.

According to Intel's plan, the characteristics of the first generation of ultrabooks introduced at the end of 2011 are the same as those of the previous high-end portable notebooks with long standby time, ultra-thin (target design thickness of 0.8 inches or less), and the biggest highlights are: Fast boot (currently the first generation of ultrabooks can achieve 2 seconds boot), according to Intel introduced the use of Ivy Bridge chip ultrabook will achieve faster system wake-up technology, this similar experience with the Tablet PC experience changes for the entire future The influence of the PC industry will be enormous.

By the end of 2012, after entering the second phase, the above attributes will be widely deployed in more diversified and wider products, including various screen sizes and full price ranges. In addition, the pricing is more competitive, and it can support the early stage of advanced technology with a greater range of interactivity, including touch screen and other cloud application functions, some of which are more forward-looking products that combine the performance of laptops and tablets.

Intel hopes that by 2013, the market will experience this transition as a whole, and a particularly thin, small, fast, safe and robust system will become the new standard for the entire volume range.

Defining such a product is of great significance to Intel. Intel, which has missed the opportunity in terms of mobile Internet terminals, is currently under an unprecedented threat. Qualcomm intending to enter Intel's backyard makes it necessary for Intel to protect its original position. market. The concept of Ultrabook is a product that conforms to the trend of the mobile Internet. It quickly sets standards and development paths. For Intel, it not only can retain the position of the general manager of the PC industry chain, but also can reshape its brand image of continuous innovation.

For PC manufacturers, although they all have layouts of tablets and smart phones, if they can't protect their original positions, then the mobile Internet strategy is also difficult to succeed. At that time, chairman of the Lenovo Board of Directors Liu Chuanzhi told this reporter: Only by guaranteeing a steady growth of the PC can the opportunities for the rapid maturation of MIDH (Mobile Internet and Digital Home Business Group) be exchanged.

The industry chain will become the protagonist of Asian companies, and the Wintel Alliance will be completely disintegrated. Perhaps this will be the biggest change in the industrial chain after the birth of the Ultrabook.

The Ultrabook was born in Taipei. It is worth considering. The fastest response to Intel is Taiwanese vendors Acer and Asus. The Lenovo and Toshiba products that subsequently introduced Ultrabooks are all Asian manufacturers without exception. All signs indicate that Asian manufacturers will become Intel’s new allies in the Ultrabook War.

According to the judgment of ASUS CEO Shen Zhenlai, Asian manufacturers in the future will be the protagonists in the PC industry. Why aren't US PC giants' interest in Ultrabooks very strong? Shen Zhenlai believes: "The profit margin of the PC industry is getting thinner, and at the same time, a lot of R&D investment is needed in the phase of rapid development of the Ultrabook. This is something that the shareholders of American manufacturers would not be willing to accept."

This point of view is not difficult to corroborate. Prior to this, it had staged a farce to abandon PC manufacturing. It revealed that Hewlett-Packard will focus on enterprise-level business and hope to follow the path of IBM.

Dell is actually more determined than Hewlett-Packard. Although there has never been any resignation to abandon PC manufacturing, Dell is now more inclined to use the PC as a client terminal in enterprise-level end-to-end solutions. Currently, enterprise-class business revenue has accounted for Of 66% of Dell's overall revenue, of course, this includes PCs sold with the solution, but in the future, Dell's strategic focus will never be a consumer-class PC business. Even if the future becomes more mature with Ultrabook, Dell will launch related products, but believe that At that time, Dell had already taken off the coat of “PC maker”.

In contrast, Asian manufacturers are rushing in and hope to replace it when the American giants have expressed their interest in the Ultrabook.

The fastest ultrabook launch is Acer. As the TOP sponsor of the 2012 London Olympics, according to Gartner's report, Acer is the biggest one among the top 5 PC makers in the first quarter of 2011, sticking to traditional PCs and netbooks. Business is the outside world's interpretation of the Acer decline.

Therefore, it is urgently necessary to prove its own innovation and to save the market's grandeur. This has become the most active supporter of the Ultrabook. In the understanding of ultrabooks, Acer’s attitude is also very clear, and its global president, Weng Jianren, said: “The ultrabook is not just a product specification, but the mainstream trend of the current laptop. Therefore, Acer Acer laptop Design and development, as far as possible to the ultra-pole characteristics development."

The other two vendors, Lenovo and Asus, are relatively good players in the PC industry in the winter. Both of them hope to become representatives of innovation in the PC industry. Therefore, they are also committed to the attitude of ultrabooks and hope to come up with more than the industry. Level of product.

Before going through the twists and turns in the acquisition of IBM PC, the current Lenovo has embarked on a steady development path, despite the massive expansion into the smart phone and tablet market, but just sitting on the world's second largest PC maker Lenovo is very clear: only PC's Steady growth can be used in exchange for fast and mature opportunities for MIDH. On the other hand, although Lenovo has achieved double-digit growth in emerging markets, it must not be left behind in the mainstream market. Therefore, Lenovo must pay attention to such products as Ultrabook.

Before the Lenovo ultrabook product IdeaPad U300s was introduced to the market, employees of the company received an internal email from Peter Hortensius, president of the product group. In the email, Peter not only introduced the characteristics of the product, but also stressed: In the future In several quarters, ThinkPad and IdeaPad will launch a series of more eye-catching series of ultrabooks, utilizing the new development opportunities of Ultrabook to bring Lenovo notebooks to more consumers around the world. In the history of Lenovo, only the X300, which has given Lenovo a high-end image after the acquisition of ThinkPad, has such treatment.

Another company, ASUS, who has shown its contrarian growth has accumulated rich experience and lessons after experiencing the easy PC. Asus, which has transformed engineer culture into design thinking, has also invested a lot of effort in the ultrabook, according to Shen Zhenlai. : "The Ultrabook is brewed in May 2011 with Asus and Intel, and Intel put forward the ultrabook concept in Computex in June."

It seems that Intel’s strongest allies are PC makers from Asia. In the past, Intel’s old partner, Microsoft, did not cooperate with Intel’s pace because Windows 8 did not match the first generation of ultrabooks. The ultrabook attitude is somewhat loose.

In fact, with the change of industry, different allies will appear when targeting a certain product. In the future, for any personal mobile computing terminal, the central processor, operating system, and hardware manufacturers can be arbitrarily arranged to become allies. Based on this, Microsoft's windows8 can not only be applied to ultrabooks, but also can be applied to tablet computers. Microsoft will not give up the tablet market in order to align with Ultrabook.

While Intel itself is gathering high-profile ultra heroes, it is also looking for new allies in the field of smartphones. The launch of Lenovo's Android phone equipped with the X86 platform at CES is the best example.

For the success of the Ultrabook, Microsoft is certainly happy to see it. If the PC continues its traditional model, then all the innovations of Windows 8 have little practical significance for the PC industry. In the future, notebooks will surely undergo a fundamental change - combined with touch control, faster boot times, and disruptive applications. This is not just Intel's conviction, but also Microsoft's judgment. This is undoubtedly true.

The ultra-pole ultra-pole of the cross-border war is not Wintel's Jedi counterattack, but the beginning of cross-border war in the IT industry. Everyone's strategic goal is to compete for the personal cloud terminal initiative. The so-called ultrabook is to maximize the computing performance of the notebook while achieving as good portability and ease of use as smartphones and tablets. By the same token, smart phones have been constantly emphasizing chip performance in recent years. They are nothing more than to achieve the computing power of comparable notebook computers.

According to Intel’s schedule, 2013 will be a large-scale product that covers the entire price range and screen size. This year will be a year for all companies to go through their internal careers, leaving them with a place to go when the 2013 war breaks out. There will be no more PC, tablet, mobile phone and TV makers.

Vendors are likely to introduce multi-screen products in the future, but PC makers who started out on laptops are at a disadvantage in the initial stage of mobile Internet. Smartphones and tablet computers have become the products that represent the trend of mobile Internet. Ultrabook is an opportunity for PC makers to reverse this situation. Only by building this terminal can PC makers regain their initiative.

Therefore, in this war, it is not a hardware competition that determines the outcome of the battle. One type of terminal is a strong entry point, and then the integration of multi-screen terminals through cloud strategy is the decisive battlefield for manufacturers.

Today's PC makers have realized the importance of cloud applications. Each PC vendor is building its own cloud platform and will be deployed in the future of ultrabooks. Whether it is AcerCloud of Acer, Lenovo's LeCloud, or ASUS's ASUS@vibe, the user's mobile Internet experience is not only a problem to be considered by mobile phone and tablet manufacturers, but also a key strategy for PC manufacturers.

In the next four screens integration, even in the era of the Internet of Things, smart phones, tablet PCs, and ultrabooks can compete for the cloud war that controls the Internet of Things initiative. Qualcomm’s global CEO, Paul Jacobs, believes that it is a smartphone, and Intel and his allies, of course, hope to be ultrabooks.

The advent of the Ultrabook is just the beginning of a personal cloud terminal battle. Focusing only on changes in the hardware and the physical level, Apple will not achieve breakthrough innovation, completely disrupting the PC and mobile phone industry.

Now, if the PC camp that wants Jedi to fight back only regards the ultrabook as an extension of the notebook, then the winning side will be quite small. If this terminal is used as an entry point to the cloud war of the future, it will be further deployed. It is only possible that the screen mobile interconnection terminal is possible, and the ultrabook may be the last chance of the PC industry chain.