Ultrabooks to Account for 43 Percent of Notebooks in 2015
Ultrabooks may have had a slow start, but they are now predicted to quickly capture market share and offer an opportunity of unexpected growth for the semiconductor industry.
IHS forecasts that 2 percent of notebooks will be ultrabooks in 2011, while the share will expand to 28 percent in 2013, to 38 percent in 2014 and 43 percent in 2015.
Consumers are predicted to initially drive the adoption of ultrabooks, but additional form factors that will integrate convertible form factors and touchscreens will allow people to use these devices as notebooks or tablets and enable the technology to attract corporate users as well, IHS believes.
"With the introduction of the ultrabook, the computing industry is poised for yet another paradigm shift," said Len Jelinek, research director and analyst, semiconductor manufacturing at IHS, in a prepared statement. "The technology now exists that actually could bring about a convergence of major mobile devices. If an attractive price point can be achieved and the consumer deems this a must-have product, the entire semiconductor manufacturing supply chain could rapidly reorient itself to serve the fast-growing ultrabook market."
Jelinek said that the ultrabook could have enough appeal to "end the current slowdown in the semiconductor and electronics manufacturing industries." The transition from hard disk drives to SSDs, especially, "will increase unit demand for flash memory while stabilizing chip average selling prices," IHS noted. In addition, a much more complex bill of materials could benefit a wide array of suppliers, and "positively impact other supply chain participants, such as battery suppliers and electronics contract manufacturers," the market research firm said.
I can almost guarantee my next one won't be a ultrabook.
I would never buy an Atom netbook, but a ULV version of a mainstream Processor, I just might. I'll wait until my Asus G50VT with a X9100@3.6GHZ dies first.
I must disappoint you in one thing, there is no god
But since even the most poop of laptop is not 'at a reasonable pricepoint', I don't see how they can manage it.
Unless 'ultrabook' means an i5 surrounded by junk.
it's muslim, not muslem.
They are labeling the average progression of technology as "ultra". Laptops ten years ago were fabed on silicon at 4 times lower density of transistors, so duh, they should be getting smaller. Calling them some prestigious item and jacking up the price tag is market manipulation.
Marketing Evil says: they will buy it because we will make everything else look worse.
Funny... how I have yet to actually meet a single person in real life who OWNS a tablet, this is NOT an iPad. At local fairs - they have drawings for iPad2... one did say tablet, but it was still an iPad2. I didn't win... but hey, for $1 - it was worth a shot.
Ultrabooks are just thin notebooks with power. But here is a tip... a $700~900 1.5" thick notebook is far easier to upgrade, repair and more sturdy than these 1" thick things.
Tho the fly in the ointment, My setup will always revolve around large storage high end PC at home. This PC will handle encoding, recording TV and gaming. The problem comes when I want to game on the go but the way mobile phones are going and if the internet progresses enough to support onlive I won't need a powerful laptop. My set up at home would consist of my own personal cloud for storage and heavy lifting. Other cloud services like onlive for gaming. All I need then is my atom powered netbook. While I love ultrabooks, There day is now, not so many years later. If ISP's and government actually get their finger out of their bum holes and open up public wifi and offer decent speed, or even LTE in the UK without stupid data prices and rules to how I use what I've paid for, ultra books will become pointless
Maybe we should call them penultimate books?