For those of us in the tech media and analysts world, there are two major shows each year that give us an opportunity to see new devices and get a glimpse of our technology future. The first is CES in Las Vegas in January, and the second is Computex in Taipei in early June. CES is very consumer focused while Computex is designed to show off next generation technology to the vendors and suppliers.
I traveled to Taipei to attend this year's Computex, and as expected, this year's show had a major tablet theme. Apple's success with the iPad has ODMs and OEMs scrambling to create similar tablets, so that they can try to deliver products within this category of devices. Various research groups, such as IDC, Gartner, etc, all show tablets as a large growth opportunity for vendors, with some of them projecting that over 200 million tablets a year will be sold WW by 2014.
There were three major trends I saw at this year's Computex show that could have quite a dramatic impact on the market over the next three years. The first one was highlighted in Intel's Keynote speech, which focused on a new 22nm chip that it's working on in its Atom chipset line. Intel has been playing catch-up with the ARM crowd, and until recently, it has not had much traction with OEMs on its current line of Atom chips, because they still are not power efficient enough to use in smartphones and most mainstream tablets. But Intel has made great strides in this area with its 22nm mfg process, and by the end of the year, it will be creating low-voltage, high-speed processors, code named Ivy Bridge. It will allow vendors to create a laptop that is very thin and has the attributes of a tablet, but offers the performance of the PC. Intel calls these types of laptops Ultrabooks. By 2013, it expects that 50 percent of its mobile laptop chips will be used in Ultrabook-like mobile devices.
At first, when you hear that claim, you might be tempted to think that this is Intel's way of helping vendors create a MacBook Air-like product. And if you are cynical, you may even say "here we go again," since Intel's early CULV chips were trying to deliver the same type of ultra-thin laptops. But those chips were underpowered and could never deliver the battery life needed to make these ultra-thins take off. Also, they were based on 45nm manufacturing processes, and with them, Intel over promised and under delivered.
However, Intel believes that there are millions of people out there that still want the power and functionality of a laptop, yet the true mobility of tablet. Intel's push will be to marry the two, which should lead to some very interesting products.
A good example of this is the current Motorola Atrix smartphone/laptop combo that tries to double as a laptop by connecting the Atrix smartphone to a laptop device through a doc. The hottest product shown at this year's Computex, called the Asus PhonePad, is tracking along this trend line as well. Although in this case, the smartphone pops into tablet, not a laptop. To be clear, all of these vendors are trying to innovate and not create another me-too product. And while these designs are interesting, I think that what Intel will push around the convertible concept may have more industry acceptance.
The first generation of convertibles actually came out as part of Microsoft's pen computing program around 2000. But back then, they were over 5 pounds and rather chunky. But imagine if you had a MacBook Air-like laptop with an 11-inch screen that could slide down over the keyboard to turn it into a full tablet.
The virtue in this idea is that a person could just carry a single personal computing device instead of a tablet and a laptop. The Motorola Atrix and the ASUS PhonePad takes a stab at this concept, but Intel and its partners see the real opportunity of creating a tablet/laptop combo by keeping the smartphone focused on what it does best instead of making it the CPU center of a keyboard doc or a tablet.
Keep your eyes on this "convertible" trend. If Intel and its partners are right, we could see some very cool products in this category by CES.
The second key trend came with the announcement of Bluestacks' Android on Windows virtual software. I wrote about this a couple of weeks back but Bluestacks used Computex for its official launch. The interest in running Android on Windows is very high. In fact, at Bluestacks' press event, it had Ray Chen, the Chairman of Compal and one of the major ODMs, talking about its impact on the industry and Nigel Dessau, the CMO of AMD, discussing how his company is bullish on how it could help the X86 crowd fit more tightly within the emerging ecosystem of Android apps.
The impetus behind this interest is the fact that people are getting very use to using apps as a way to gain quick access to cloud-based services or localized applications. Today they only use these apps on their smartphones and tablets. But with Bluestacks, those same apps can now run on a Windows 7 PC as well. Even more amazing is that these Android apps can even use Windows drivers and all of Windows utilities. For example, if you create a file or document in an Android app, it uses the Windows print drivers to print it out. Or if you have an Android app that needs communications protocols, then it uses all of Windows 7 communication capabilities. Bluestacks' virtual Android engine makes an X86 Windows PC a full blown Android PC as well. This is also one to watch.
And the third major trend I saw at Computex was not a good one. There were over 50 new tablets launched at this show, and they all basically follow a PC model of just creating devices with lower prices and very little innovation. I went by one booth of a key semiconductor company that had nine tablets using its chip, and they all looked pretty much the same. Even worse, it just took a stock version of Android and put it on the tablets with no ties to services or any enhanced UI.
Of the 50 tablets I saw, there was probably only one or two that might even have a chance of selling a modest amount. These vendors either don't get the fact that Apple is successful because it has a complete ecosystem of hardware software and services, or if they do, they are just hoping that they can compete against Apple with lower prices along. It is a crowded mess out there, and consumers are bound to be confused about what type of Android tablet to buy if they are presented with a ridiculous amount of choices with very little innovation behind them. This suggests that Apple is still going to dominate in the tablets space through this year and well into 2012, and while the Android crowd and other tablet makers will create competitive products, if they only take a hardware approach to this market, most of them will fail.
But if you look at these three trends together, they become very interesting. Intel's push with the "Ultrabook" will eventually create a combo device that can run Windows 8 in both normal Windows OS mode and in Windows tablet mode. These "sliders," as they are called, would give users a full fledged tablet with an integrated keyboard that becomes available when the user slides the flat screen. Now add the Bluestacks virtual Android OS for Windows to one of these devices, and they have even more appeal to consumers, especially ones that have Android phones. In this case, the device would be a full Windows PC mode when the keyboard is exposed and a full Android-based tablet when in tablet mode. And even though there are dozens of tablets coming to market and only a few of them will succeed, the sheer momentum behind the competitive push to create the next great tablet/PC combo should result in greater innovation within these types of designs and, in the end, give us even more exciting mobile form factors.