Thursday, 6 March 2008

2007 Momentous for UMD Market

2007 was apparently a year of significant events in the enigmatic Ultra Mobile Devices (UMD) market as major moves were seen on multiple fronts including connectivity, new ultra mobile devices and new processors.

According to a survey done by high-tech firm In-Stat, the industry is now beginning to accept that there can only be one Internet. Multiple versions with limited/cut content and performance depending on whether the user's device identifies itself to the network as a phone or a PC is not an acceptable solution for consumers.

"Major moves by processor manufacturers will continue to enable new UMD designs (primarily UMPCs and MIDs)," says Ian Lao, In-Stat analyst.

"New processor platforms such as Silverthorne from Intel and Isaiah from VIA will continue to target not only performance but also power dissipation."

The report titled “UMDs-Are They For Real? A Worldwide Snapshot” also revealed that:

• Long-range wireless broadband, such as WiMAX, and new wireless technologies like Gobi, a new platform from Qualcomm, are poised to bring anywhere connectivity to reality

• The market accepts the mobile Internet usage concept as seen by the success of products such as the Q1/Q1Ultra, iPhone, and N810 from Samsung, Apple, and Nokia respectively

• The fragmented nature of consumer usages makes it all but impossible to meet the significantly different usage needs with one do-all device.