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HP EliteBook and Windows 8: The Latest Ultrabook Disconnect
Michael Dell on Thursday demonstrated Windows 8 ultrabooks, tablets and PCs for The VAR Guy. The message was clear: Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) is ready to empower partners for touch, tablet and mobile computing.
The VAR Guy
October 26, 2012
2 Min Read
HP EliteBook Ultrabook
Michael Dell on Thursday demonstrated Windows 8 ultrabooks, tablets and PCs for The VAR Guy. The message was clear: Dell (NASDAQ: DELL) is ready to empower partners for touch, tablet and mobile computing. A few hours later, The VAR Guy returned home and saw a slick direct mail package from Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ). The HP promotion described the EliteBook Folio 9470m — an ultrabook — running Windows 7. Huh? An expensive Windows 7 direct mail promo the day Windows 8 launches? This is the latest example of big disconnects between PC and ultrabook makers, Intel (NASDAQ: INTC), Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and the march to Windows 8.Admittedly, Windows 7 will be around for years to come. And ultrabooks are a promising mobile computing form factor. But The VAR Guy thinks a great deal of ultrabook marketing has completely missed the mark. Here’s what’s wrong:
Intel, to its credit, developed the ultrabook design specifications to help the PC industry compete against Apple’s MacBook Air.
But many PC makers are stumbling with their ultrabook efforts, The VAR Guy believes.
The first ultrabooks were designed for consumers and lacked any real remote management capabilities. Yet, many PC makers marketed the consumer ultrabooks to business. Ouch.
Second-generation ultrabooks arrived in mid-2012, shortly before the Windows 8 launch. Those ultrabooks can be remotely managed, and generally speaking they run Windows 7.
Now you’ve got PC makers, such as HP, promoting their Windows 7 ultrabooks the day of the Windows 8 launch. In some ways that’s a good think: VARs and MSPs likely aren’t ready to pitch Windows 8 to their customers, so it makes sense for HP to continue banging the Windows 7 drum. But on Windows 8 launch day? That’s questionable.
The VAR Guy’s conclusion: It would have been far wiser for Intel, Microsoft and PC makers to coordinate second-generation ultrabook launches with Windows 8’s debut, rather than releasing Windows 7 ultrabooks for business only a few weeks before Windows 8’s launch.
Bottom line: There’s only one MacBook Air. The VAR Guy keeps hearing about more and more ultrabooks. But sometimes less is more. Time for Intel, Microsoft and the PC industry to standardize and simplify their ultrabook messages — especially as the Windows 8 wave builds.
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