On Dell E

Props to Dell, not sure about the name – rather reminiscent of the Asus Eee PC. Perhaps the plan is to bamboozle unsuspecting consumers into purchasing the Dell when they were looking for the Asus. There is no need – I have previously lauded the Asus Eee 1000 but now my affections are transferred to this little beauty.

Engadget has a rather crappy slideshow from Dell which gives us the lowdown. The Dell E It will have 1GB RAM and up to 16GB flash and run a choice of XP or Linux. I will buy one when they arrive. A shiny black one please Michael. Mmmmm.

On XP

The tanker begins to turn. Microsoft have announced an extension for XP on the desktop following their earlier move to extend XP for UMPCs. Now I’ve been predicting the death of the desktop. Maybe I’m wrong but if they do survive it will be in this lighter shape, not Vista powered behemoths.

All they are doing with this move is recognising reality. PC manufacturers were using a loophople in the Vista licence to downgrade to XP, or as PCs PR lady puts it ‘upgrading to a more familiar experience’. By doing this MS has de facto readopted XP by acknowledging it as their OS of choice for stripped down PCs. They didn’t want to do it but the threat of Linux taking over this rapidly growing market was too horrible to contemplate so this is the least worst option.

Of course the real problem with doing this is that extending XP indefinitely means the end of Vista. Now this is the right move but it’s like having to admit the car you just bought is worse than your old one, you don’t want to do it but that is where MS is currently stuck. Using XP for everything and leaving Vista in the garage.

On tiny chips

The UMPC revolution has just as many implications for chip manufacturers as software makers. Intel got in there first with the Atom and now Nvidia is getting in on the act with the Tegra. According to the BBC report the chips are intended for devices with up to 12 inch screens which puts them squarely in the middle of the UMPC range. This is further evidence of the end of the desktop machine.

In the home I think the network will coalesce around the STB with other devices spinning off around it. I’m not sure about dedicated home servers as this is far too techy for most people. The increasing power and capacity of increasingly small components makes me think something the size of a VCR will be sufficient for most people. Entertainment will be delivered direct to the correct device; video to the STB and music to the handheld.

I think people will end up with three basic devices: the UMPC (eg Asus), the STB (eg Humax) and the handheld (eg iPhone/Blackberry). There will be some crossover in what they can do, for example I would expect email to be primary functions of both the handheld and the UMPC whereas video would be primarily be delivered to the STB and maybe the UMPC for journeys. Video on handhelds is novelty which I expect to die off. Some people will still by dedicated desktop machines for specific high end uses such as graphic design or film production but those numbers will fall back to something like the percentage of people who had a PC in, say, 1994.

Ultimately what technology companies need to remember is that while gadgets may be able to do more humans are still simple creatures. The proof of that is that simple concepts and simple devices are the ones which break out. Google is still a single function website and the iPod thrived thanks to its simplicity. People can deal with two or three gadgets which make their life easier, anyone planning on more than that is in for a shock.

Pic: Gizmodo

On Ultramobile PCs

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.