Going thin and bling, HP tries to strike Envy with latest laptops

Hewlett-Packard Co. introduced a half-dozen new notebook PCs today, including a luxury line that bears a striking resemblance to Apple Inc.'s laptops. Overall, two things unify the new models introduced by the world's largest notebook vendor: a skinny, sub-inch profile, and an overt emphasis on design, including metallic shells and imprinted or etched designs on the cases. HP also introduced a thin-and-light Pavilion consumer notebook with an aluminum shell starting at $549, and a new Mini netbook powered by Nvidia Inc.'s ION graphics.

Take the two new high-end notebooks HP is calling its Envy line. The result, as the picture below and PC World's reviewer both confirm, is a machine very similar to Apple's unibody aluminum-encased MacBook Pros. The Envys come encased in sleek gunmetal gray aluminum-magnesium alloy shells, use a low-profile, chiclet-style, backlit keyboard, sport a long-running but nonremoveable lithium-polymer battery, and a bright (410 nits) widescreen. The Envy 13, with a 13-in. screen, is 0.8-inches thick and weighs 3.74 pounds. He likens the strategy to the car industry. "The Envy is like a Lexus, a luxury car that is still affordable to the upper-middle-classes," Kay said.

It starts at $1,699. The Envy 15 starts at $1,799. Fully loaded models of either will cost more than $2,000. Roger Kay, an analyst with EndPoint Technology Associates Inc., is not bothered by HP's strategy of aping Apple's design or its prices. "More than any other vendor, HP has narrowed that gap" with Apple, he said. Dell Inc.'s forthcoming ultra-thin (0.4-inches) Adamo, by contrast, is likely to be priced more "like a Ferrari - only a few people are going to be able to buy them." Besides the Envys, HP rolled out the Pavilion DM3 consumer notebook. It also rolled out a new business notebook, the ProBook 5310M, which starts at $649. HP also introduced a special edition of its HP Mini 110 netbook imprinted with a picture created by a noted European design firm. Tipping in at 1-in. thick and 4.2 pounds, the aluminum-clad Pavilion starts at $549 when equipped with an AMD processor. The HP Mini 110 by Studio Tord Boontje will start at $399. HP also introduced the new HP Mini 311. It comes with a larger-than-average 11.6-inch screen powered by Nvidia's ION multimedia platform. Shim hailed HP's ongoing prowess at taking high-end trends and translating them into products that work at different price points.

The Mini 311 also starts at $399. That pricing appears to be lower than other ION-equipped netbooks, notes Richard Shim, an analyst with IDC Corp. HP has been "pretty successful" going "after a wide audience, from entry-level to high end," he said. "Apple, I would argue, is still just high-end." Most of the notebooks will become available on Oct. 22 the day that Windows 7 launches, though buyers can reserve them immediately via HP's Web site.

Intel's Otellini says it's time to take the lid off IT budgets

Intel President and CEO Paul Otellini said the economy has already hit rock bottom and now that it's emerging from the recessionary mire, companies are about to take the lid off of IT budgets. We're likely to see PC unit volume this year above 2008, which you wouldn't have thought even three months ago." And the head of Intel said since companies have been making due with aging laptops the last few years, it's time for CIOs to do a little high-tech shopping. "Corporate budgets were just clamped down. Otellini talked about the economy , PC sales, the advance of silicon and the metamorphosis of netbooks at a morning session of the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco today. "We found bottom," he said. "Actually, I think we found bottom much earlier than everyone thought we would. CIOs and CFOs kept the lid on budgets last year and I expect that to change.

They have to be replaced. We expect that to open up in 2010," he added. "The average desktop is five years old, a laptop is four years old. They're out of warranty. And CIOs are buying that argument." Otellini has good reason to be optimistic. It's more expensive to keep the old ones than to buy new ones.

Just last week, Intel reported strong third-quarter earnings that beat analyst expectations. Revenue was even up by $1.4 billion compared to this fiscal year's second quarter. The chip maker reported third-quarter revenue of $9.39 billion for the quarter that ended Sept. 26, beating the $9.04 billion estimations. Over the next few years, Otellini said, much of what will drive Intel's business is the increasing focus on mobile computing. We've been able to shrink the micro processor down to a very tiny part of the chip, so we can use the other transistors available to put more function on the chip.... And engineers at the chip maker are focusing on how to feed that growing market. "Moore's Law gives you a template to build things at much higher performance, much lower cost, much lower power," he said. "We're aiming at a whole family of products of a system on a chip.

The things we do that go in your pocket are focused on the lowest power and all-day battery life, which is the minimum you need on these things, and very high performance graphics and video with a minimal cost, while keeping the form factor very, very thin." Otellini also said that the time is running out on using silicon to build chips. Scientists and engineers have been working with the material and even adding other materials to try to change its properties so the chip can do more than before. Silicon is the basic building block of the microchip. Today, Otellini said he thinks chip makers will come out with three more generations of processors using silicon and then will be looking at a different base material. Trust me," he said. He wouldn't say what that material might be. "It's cool.

And responding to a question about the choice between smartphones and netbooks , Otellini said he sees big changes coming for the netbook. "I think the [netbook's] screen size and having a different keyboard is a different use model than smart phones," he said. "Not any better and not any worse. They'll have both. In places like San Francisco, people will have a laptop and a smart phone. In other places, most people will have to choose. They'll get smaller.

We'll put more capabilities into netbooks that will make them better. They'll have GPS. They'll just get better."

Google commands more than half of iPhone’s Web traffic

A new report from Chitika Research shows that Google has even more significant presence on the iPhone than you might have thought. Chitika's findings show that across the Internet as a whole-not just iPhone or mobile Internet-Google search accounts for about 31 percent of Web traffic. According to Chitika, Google searches alone account for more than 50 percent of all Internet traffic from mobile device running the iPhone OS.That means Google outstrips all other traffic, including other search sites and all visits to Websites in the phone's browser.

Google has doubtlessly attained an even more commanding position on the iPhone because it's the default search provider in the iPhone's Safari browser. There has been no shortage of ink spilled about the growing rivalry between Apple and Google. Some iPhone users tend to search for sites via Google rather than type in full URLs.  But what happens if Google loses its prime location on the iPhone and iPod touch, as a recent BusinessWeek report suggests? And the Mountain View search behemoth has just released its Google Voice Web app, entirely bypassing Apple's App Store. The mobile Web market is changing rapidly, though, and Google's own Android OS is capturing a bigger piece of the pie. If a tit-for-tat ensues, we could very well see Google search get demoted on the iPhone, and with that could come a sudden change in fortunes for Google's mobile advertising.

The iPhone now accounts for 54 percent of total smartphone traffic. All of this should make the coming year unpredictable and pretty interesting. Android has snagged 27 percent. One final word about the data: Chitika is a search-based online advertising network, and the company derived its numbers from a sample of traffic through that network. With 700 million impressions to analyze, one can assume that Chitika has used a fairly representative sample, but the report doesn't include a detailed methodology.

ITU Telecom World expo shifts in response to economic crisis

The ITU Telecom World exhibition has returned to Geneva after a visit to Hong Kong in 2006 - and has brought many Asian exhibitors back with it. The booths of China Mobile, ZTE and Datang Telecom Group loom over the entrance to the main hall, alongside those of NTT DoCoMo and Fujitsu, while upstairs Huawei Technologies and Samsung Electronics booths dwarf that of Cisco Systems, which has more meeting rooms than products on display. "Ten months ago, people were urging us to cancel the event," said Hamadoun Touré, secretary-general of the International Telecommunication Union, which organizes the exhibition and the policy forum that runs alongside it. There are also signs that the way some companies are using the show is shifting. The pessimists feared that the show would attract neither exhibitors nor visitors, as companies slashed marketing budgets and cut back on business travel in the midst of the economic downturn.

The ITU still expects 40,000 visitors at this year's show; 82,000 turned up at the last Geneva event, in 2003. This year, around half the show is occupied by national pavilions: Saudi Arabia has the biggest, followed by those of Spain and Russia. While the show is noticeably smaller than previous editions - it only occupies Halls 2, 4 and 5 of the sprawling seven-hall Palexpo exhibition center, with some yawning gaps between stands, Touré is satisfied. "It's a good show, despite the crisis," he said. Other European nations, including Belgium, France and the U.K., also have pavilions, but by far the most numerous are those of the African nations: Burundi, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The biggest company stands are those of the Asian network operators and equipment manufacturers, with the U.S. and Western European countries keeping a low profile. Microsoft and IBM have booths, but you'd barely notice. This domination of the show floor is not down to size alone: It's also about tactics.

There were actually only three of them, but their effect was magnified by loud music and the multiple video walls on the booth. Russia deployed what looked like an army of violinists dressed mostly in sequins on its stand on Monday. China Mobile has taken a similar route, with the logo of its 3G mobile brand, Wo, swirling and pulsing hypnotically across the walls and even the ceiling of its booth. Similar exhibits fill the stands at NTT DoCoMo and Samsung. ZTE has taken a more traditional route, with glass cases full of mobile phones, modems and cellular base stations.

On the Cisco booth, there are almost no products to be seen - unless you count the looming bulk of one of its TelePresence systems, linking the booth in high resolution to similar systems around the world. This shows images of the products that can be rotated on screen to examine them from different angles - and even measured or dismantled so that prospective buyers can figure out whether they would fit in their data center. Other elements of the Cisco product range are present virtually thanks to another screen, supplied by Massachusetts-based Kaon Interactive. Like Secretary-General Touré, Cisco faced a crucial decision last year about whether to maintain a show presence in Geneva. "One year ago, it wasn't clear how many customers were going to make this trip," said Suraj Shetty, the company's vice president of worldwide service provider marketing. That's why the rest of the stand is given over to meeting rooms. "Our focus is on customer intimacy," Shetty said.

However, the company realized that "this could be used as an opportunity to shift how we get contact with customers," he said. Carrier Ethernet specialist Ciena has taken a similar approach. Like Cisco, it prefers to show products virtually, rather than physically. "Computer graphics and touch screens are more effective in these cases. Its stand, close to Cisco's and even more discreet, consists entirely of meeting rooms. That's the trend," said Ciena CTO Stephen Alexander.

If you're buying bulky network or data center infrastructure, then don't expect to kick the tires at a trade show next year - although you might be able to click on them, on the booth's screen or your own.