Intel Ultrabooks and Windows 8

Ultrabooks are super-slim, super mobile notebooks — essentially the PC market’s response to Apple’s MacBook Air. Ultrabooks haven’t exactly set the world on fire so far. But it’s still early in the Ultrabook game. And Allen compares the Ultrabook-Windows 8 combo to the classic Pentium-Windows 95 combo nearly two decades ago.

“Microsoft and Intel are coming to market, at roughly the same time, with industry transforming technologies,”he asserted.

Allen mentioned Intel Small Business Advantage, which offers channel partners software monitoring, data backup and restore, PC health, USB blocker, energy saver and Intel wireless display capabilities. Anti-theft technologies are also built in to Ultrabooks. “It’s a must-sell capability for every Ultrabook,” he said.

Allen said Intel has Ultrabook roadmaps that stretch out to 2015. He mentioned the synergies between Windows 8 and Ultrabooks, as users seek to create and manage content on touch-powered Ultrabooks and other form factors.