Hot on the heels of Asus announcing its Eee PC 1000, Dell has got in on the act by announcing its own UPMC. This is the beginning of the end of the traditional laptop. Nobody really needs desktop specs in a mobile device, what they need is portability. Asus has had the market to itself for a while (the HP 2133 is expensive and looks terrible so I ignore it) but now, finally a worthy opponent has arrived.
The Dell looks nice, very very nice. Maybe it is my penchant for all things ultramobile but this is what I have always wanted. A PC with a flash drive from which I can access the internet and occasionally use Word and Excel.
This has implications for Microsoft and Apple. The former has to decide whether it is going to develop a UMPC specific OS. It already has XP of course, the simple option would be to declare it the Microsoft UMPC OS and keep supporting it. Alternatively they could just acquire Splashtop.
This is not great news for Apple either. With the MacBook Air they have plumped for thin and expensive rather than small and cheap. Good design has allowed them to pursue this strategy in the past but others are now wising up to that idea. They need to get the shrunken MacBook out there. Fast.
