San Francisco: Banking on emerging markets like India, China and Brazil to drive continued growth in sales of PCs, technology giant Intel said "the new kid on the block", Ultrabooks, would herald a transformation in the market.
Ultrabooks, touted by the world's largest chip-maker as as a sleeker, thinner and faster version of laptops at an affordable price and the next big thing in the computing market, will be launched by different PC manufacturers toward the end of this year.
Speaking at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) 2011 here, Intel Vice-President and PC Client Group General Manager Mooly Eden said the Ultrabooks would make PCs "personal" again and give users the power of "creativity", making them "personal creativity" computing devices.
Eden said that Ultrabooks were set to bring about a revolution in the market and this transformation would be complete by 2013, when Ultrabooks would be available with Intel's next-generation Haswell microprocessors.
The Haswell chips would reduce power usage in computers by more than 20 times, as well as enhance other capabilities, he added.
Dismissing conjecture that the personal computer era was nearing its end, Eden said that growth was far from over in the PC market and more than one million PCs were being sold every day, with over 1.5 billion PCs in use today.
In this regard, he asserted that emerging markets were "on fire" and driving growth. Eden said that China has in fact overtaken the US in terms of PC sales and Brazil has grown bigger than Germany in this business.
Growth in PC sales was high in markets like India as well, as per a presentation given by Eden at the IDF.
Eden said that growing personal income levels in these emerging markets would drive the growth in the PC market, which has gone through several transformations in decades past.
"The PC has changed itself several times... first in 1995, there was a transformation from enterprise usage to consumers, when PCs emerged as a major multimedia device. Then, in 2003, the notebooks or laptops brought in the mobility factor," Eden said.
He said that eight years down the line, the Ultrabook was now bringing in the next transformation. These devices are "beyond thin and light", would come at a price that works and have been designed for the best user experience, he added.
"We will bring 'personal' back into the PC," Eden said, adding that the Ultrabooks would make PCs a device of "personal creativity".
Eden said the Ultrabook was an industry-wide effort and would be rolled out in three phases.
Phase 1 is underway and would culminate in the launch of the first Ultrabook devices with Intel's second-generation Core processors in the market this holiday season, followed by the Phase 2, when Intel would launch its third generation Core processor 'Ivy Bridge' in the first half of 2012.
The third phase of transition to Ultrabook devices would mark the introduction of Intel's next-generation, 22-nanometer processor, Haswell.
These processors would help the computer give the users 10 days of connected standby battery life and the "the most complete and satisfying computing experience."
Eden said Intel was working hard on the next generation of processors, even as its second-generation Core processor, launched earlier this year, has emerged as a major success.
"Till date, Intel has shipped 75 million 2nd generation Intel Core processors, making it the fastest-shipping processor in the company's history," he noted.
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