In April 2006, shortly after the launch of ‘Origami’, In-Stat produced a report that surprised a lot of people. “8 million units by 2011” it said. Then we had an estimate of 22 million by 2010 from both VIA and Intel and from Chippy, who’s not the most recognised statistician in the world, we had “700,000 units in 2007.”
Graph based on “10% by 2010”
In the latest report from In-Stat written by Ian Lao, they are sticking with the prediction of 8 million units in 2011 which is much much less than VIA or Intel predicted. They are using the term ‘UMD’ now though and that will please VIA because that’s the term they use ion their marketing.
Unfortunately we can’t get hold of the report details because the report isn’t free but Windows For Devices managed to extract a snippet from the report: “2008-2010 will be key years for the development of anytime/anywhere wireless connectivity, which is considered necessary for widespread adoption of the UMD paradigm.” and noted that In-Stat didn’t define the form factor of a UMD. Its not surprising as its a designers dream market out there right now. “one ultra mobile device will not be able to meet all of the different usages and applications.” say In-Stat. Absolutley true! Its all about personalised mobile computing in the ultra mobile PC space.
In-Stat’s definition of a UMD.
They are careful not to say ‘x86 only’ there aren’t they! Looking at the contents page I’d certainly like to read the ‘Market Drivers’ section and ‘Technologies and Market Inflection points’ section and I’m sure a lot of other people would too! At this point though, I feel its the right time to plug my own reports and information!
Here’s my base definition of a ultra mobile PC from 2006 along with some good discussion about form factor here. My definition of the Full Internet Experience (FIE) is here and you can find good info in the buyers guide including ‘What is a UMPC’, ‘Mobile Device categories’ and ‘Types of UMPCs’ . The site overview is here along with a list of RSS feeds here. That should keep you going for a while but If you need more specific info or analysis then drop me a line and we can talk about a tailored report.
Via Windows For Devices.
