AMD VP Posts Thoughts on MIDs vs PCs. My thoughts added.

As I wind down my posts for a short break over the next days (but wind up my work to prepare for CES in the background!) I think it’s nice that I can round-up with some discussion about MIDs and PCs. It’s especially nice that the seed for this article comes from the VP of a company that hasn’t had much to do with UMPCs and MIDs of late. I tip my hat to any VP that publicly exposes their thoughts like this and before I rip his post apart, I want to say thanks to Patrick Moorhead of AMD for his 8-post series that takes a look at UMPCs, MIDs and the challenge they might place on the PC and laptop market. (Only joking about the ‘rip apart’ bit!)

Lets put this series into perspective before we start though. Patrick is looking at the ultra mobile PC / internet device market and how it relates to the laptop market and the consumer experience.

From his first post:

1) Using “MID inch as a general term to describe a handheld computing device that has a 7 inch screen and below, typically doesn’t have a physical keyboard, typically doesn’t have spinning media, more portable than a notebook or netbook.  There are always exceptions to the rule, as is life.

The second post makes the point that many MIDs are in fact PC’s and given a keyboard and mouse, you can do most of the things that consumer want to do with a PC. Of course, we talk about that side of things a lot on UMPCPortal but we’re not so blinkered that we don’t consider the disadvantages too. Patrick takes this stance in his third post and highlight the shortcomings of a MID/ultra mobile PC when compared to a laptop. HD video, converting video, gaming, multitasking are covered and there’s some good thoughts about how real the cloud is. He highlights the high costs and says that smartphones are a better mobile choice than MIDs based on their pocketable size. He doesn’t cover the fact that MIDs and UMPCs rarely have good quality keyboard input options or small screens but that’s a fairly obvious issue!

In posts 4 to 7 Patrick takes the time to review 4 ultra mobile PC and MID solutions. The UMID M1, Viliv S5, Viliv X70 and Archos 5 (Android) Tablet.  I encourage you to read those reviews if you’re interested in the sector as the reviews are well-done and the devices represent a variety of form factors, sizes and architectures and represent the best of the market right now. I’d like to see some other marketing people come up with device reviews as detailed as these!

Post 8 in the series is the one I find the most interesting and the one I have the most thoughts on. Patrick takes time to talk about why MIDs and UMPCs aren’t a an issue for laptop manufacturers. They lag behind in capabilitiy and always will.

will [MID progress]  be enough to keep pace with the innovation curve of new applications that will emerge to solve end user pain points that can only be effectively run on a notebook? Or on a smartphone? Probably not.

I agree. But was that ever the challenge for UMPCs and MIDs? Did any ultra mobile PC manufacturer ever believe that were going to convince a consumer that a ultra mobile PC was better for general computing than a laptop? No. In my eyes, this is stating the obvious. UMPCs and MIDs are there for the ‘M’

The rest of the article is a nice conversation stimulator so allow me ramble for a bit.

Patrick says that smartphones are the battle ground. He also talks about the MID transforming into a smartphones and that the smartphone encroaching on the MID space. BINGO! There IS a space. A place. A market. A customer. It’s about connectivity, communication, location and productivity. It’s about a fast, exciting social web and media experience and an an application ecosystem. If you think that smartphones are moving towards that space, you are right. That’s exactly where other manufacturers are aiming too and when they put voice in the device to appease carriers, will they be smartphones or MIDs? Who cares. The MID space has already been verified.

The missing piece from Patricks argument in the MID vs Smartphone war is that its a new, additional category of devices. The smartphone world isn’t drifting towards MIDs, it’s breaking out into any new area it can find and that includes smaller and cheaper as well as larger, MID-like devices. As prices drop, many OEMs will break out dedicated devices into this space and if the smartphone manufacturers don’t start thinking outside the 24-month contract model, they are going to miss a trick because subsidy is not needed and lock-in contracts undesirable.

Archos have broken into the space with a media-focused device that breaks the 200 Euro price point and the same will happen again and again. The iPod Touch is a great example of dedicated MID-like hardware too. The internet-connected PND too. Internet connected web-pads and e-readers and even the internet connected gaming pad are additional examples.

Patrick is right but misses an important point, atl east in my opinion. MIDs and UMPCs are nothing for laptop manufacturers to worry about but they do need to be watching and planning for this space as MID prices drop and consumers look to buy their sceond or even third $150 gadget of the year. Smartphone manufacturers are already dipping their toes in the water but they’ll have to break out of the lock-in model and need for voice soon if they want to play a part in this consumer market.

As for Windows-desktop focused UMPCs, well, that’s another topic!