Last week when we spoke with Rene Hass, Nvidia notebook division general manager, and we could not resist not to ask about ultrabooks.
Rene believes that Intel had to go after this “sexy Apple market” but he also sees a lot of problems with the execution. He believes that the Average selling prices (ASPs) are high and that mandatory material expectations and not helping. The cost is simply too high for most consumers.
He sees issues with battery life and Windows 7 is one of the key problems to address. The slim case means slim battery as you cannot put a lot of it in this mandatory slim package.
Once again people are stepping into Apple's market and want to sell an alternative version of the sexy MacBook Air, they should end up cheaper, which is hard as Apple controls a lot of material market and buys obnoxious amounts of parts at a discount. It’s hard to compete with that for just about anyone, especially vendors who don’t seem sold on the ultrabook concept themselves and are choosing to order meager volumes anyway.
Sony tried to do this market, Dell tried with Adamo but they didn’t do particularly well. The mandatory $999 lowest price might help, but Nvidia doesn’t see them as a big thing especially not now when $400 to $600 gets you a great notebook, just a bit thicker and heavier. This is a big price difference, especially in a time of economic turmoil.
