Intel has been pushing their concept of the Ultrabook for a while now. The vision is an ultra thin, ultra light laptop with a target price of $999 or less. According to the chairman of Asus, Johnny Shih, the company is getting at least 5 ultra book models ready for an October release.
The Financial Times is reporting that the price of Asus' Ultrabook offerings will range from $799 to $1999. That higher price tag is double what Intel believes should be the highest price for this kind of machine.
Intel is convinced that Ultrabooks will make up 40% of the PC market by the end of next year. Jerry Shen, chief executive of Asus seems to think that is "a very aggressive target that would be difficult to meet before 2013.” Shen discussed two reasons the 40% target would be incredibly difficult to meet. First, because the CPU is powerful, there would be a heat concern with the machines. Second, a limited supply chain for the specialized products necessary to make the Ultrabooks so thin.
Due to those concerns, Asus is targeting the higher end of the market with their $799 to $1999 price tags. Shen believes to reach the target 40%, “you would need to develop the low and mid-range market as well. That takes time.” It seems clear with the proposed prices that Asus doesn't want to be involved in that low and mid-range market in the beginning and instead is going to target the MacBook Air directly with its models.
We'll see if the 40% market share for Ultrabooks is hit by the end of next year. It seems clear that Ultrabooks are the way for laptops to move forward but 40% market share by the end of 2012 seems more than a bit aggressive.
