Analysts. Love them or hate them they do have some pull in the
industry, as most investors really aren't tech savvy, and rely on
information and analysis provided by the media and researchers.
Usually, they tend to get most stuff right, mainly because they have
turned the art of stating the obvious into a well paid profession.
Anyway, Citigroup analyst Richard Gardner seems to believe Intel's CULV
platform rollout was disappointing.
"We had hoped that CULV-based notebooks would provide a compelling
reason for consumers to trade up from Netbooks beginning in the second
half of 2009," said Gardner. Well, actually, no. They are not supposed
to, just ask Intel. Netbooks and CULV-books are two distinct product
categories aimed at a totally different market. It's a bit like
wondering why vegans are not rushing to try out the latest McStroke
sandwich with a kilo of something that used to go "mooo" or "oink-oink" dripping out of it.
Gardner believes most PC makers "have adopted the view that
CULV's 1 watt of power savings is not sufficient to justify the price
premium for the processor." Well, either he made a typo, or he hasn't
the slightest clue of what he's talking about. CULV parts consume 5W to
10W, while regular mobile chips consume well over 20W, with some high
end chips going over 30W, easy. That's without mentioning savings from
the LED backlit panel and power efficient chipset.
Gardner concludes few manufacturers are making CULV products in
significant quantities, which basically means Acer is lying, and that
Intel "appears to be cutting marketing support
for the platform."
ThinkEquity analyst Vijay Rakesh is a tad more realistic. He believes
orders from HP, Dell and Acer indicate CULV adoption rates are lower
than expected, and this is something we've heard a few times already.
Rakesh points out the uptake has been limited by higher production
costs than originally expected, and that notebook OEMs and ODMs are
still pushing more regular models.
Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst Roger Kay says there may be
demand for CULV-based products, but that initial expectations were
probably a bit too high. We can agree with his assessment, and his
notion that Intel's timing was a bit off in this case.
Talking to some retailers I found out that many consumers are a bit
worried about getting a CULV notebook, as they're really not sure about
the performance. Intel has spent years marketing ever faster
dual-cores, and now it's hoping people will forget all that performance
talk an go for 1.3GHz or 1.4GHz single cores in 13-inch notebooks.
Unlike netbook buyers, people shopping for a thin and light notebook
expect a proper PC experience from their new toys.
The recent introduction of more affordable dual-core CULVs could do the
trick but it will take a bit of time before the average consumer gets
used to the new concept of semi-skimmed computing. A bit more
intelligent, informative marketing by Intel could also help, as well as
a bit less branding confusion, as they've truly made a mess of it.
More
here.