Origami Unfolds
By Suzanne Deffree -- EDN, March 9, 2006
SAN FRANCISCO -- Microsoft today unveiled its Origami Project, detailing what it is calling ultra-mobile personal computers (UMPC) at the CeBIT show in Hannover, Germany.
The move was an expected one. Microsoft had been hyping a coming technology for three weeks through its www.OrigamiProject.com Web site. Meanwhile, long-time partner Intel this week at its spring developer forum here promoted its idea of an “ultra mobile PC” that would be smaller than a laptop but larger than a cell phone. Neither Sean Maloney, executive VP of Intel’s mobility group, nor Mooley Eden, corporate VP and general manager for the same group, would admit Intel’s involvement in Origami during their respective presentations on Tuesday.
“The opportunity is in between. Yes, you can surf the Internet on a cellular phone, you can even watch a movie on a cellular phone, but I’ve had better experiences in my life. We believe that in between there is opportunity for a new category that will not replace the cellular phone or the notebook. This category will be the ultra mobile PC,” Eden said.
Microsoft today confirmed Intel’s involvement, saying Intel Pentium M or Celeron M chips are used in the UMPCs. VIA C7-M processors will also be available, Microsoft said. Electronic News spoke with AMD on its interest in UMPCs and the company said it plans to continue to focus on notebooks at this time.
“We keep our eyes closely monitoring that market. The problem from my standpoint is it’s too large to be a PDA, it doesn’t necessarily have all day battery life, and it doesn’t have the traditional input device of a keyboard so it’s poor for content creation,” said Dave Rooney, product manager, AMD Turion 64 mobile technology. “It’s a niche device until we start to see some of these more practical things being solved.”
Rooney compared the products to tablet PCs. “That market hasn’t taken off in the way some people thought it would. You’re left with something sort of in between [a PDA and PC]. There tends to be all kinds of more practicality issues around the tablet,” he said. “Clearly, from a processor standpoint, we’ll work on processors that address that ultra portables space. But right now the focus is on the traditional laptop PC space.”
Microsoft disagrees, saying this is the first step toward creating a brand new PC category.
“The ‘Origami’ project is really our first step toward achieving a big vision,” said Bill Mitchell, corporate VP of Microsoft's Windows mobile platforms division, in a statement. “We believe that UMPCs will eventually become as indispensable and ubiquitous as mobile phones are today. We are working toward that goal with a sequence of advances in hardware and software.”
According to Mitchell, current Windows-based UMPC devices will weigh less than 2 pounds, with a 7-inch screen size. Users can employ a touch-enhanced display as an on-screen QWERTY keyboard to navigate or can use a stylus to input handwritten information. Further, they can also input content with a traditional keyboard, linked either by USB port or wireless Bluetooth connectivity. UMPC devices will have a battery life of two and a half hours or more, and feature 30Gbyte to 60Gbyte hard drive for storage. Some devices may also include additional built-in features such as GPS, a webcam, fingerprint reader, digital TV tuners, and compact flash and SD card readers, Microsoft said. UMPCs can be connected through Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet networks with some UMPCs able to connect via wide-area networking.
The first editions of Microsoft’s UMPCs are to run on the Windows XP Tablet PC 2005 OS and include pre-installed Microsoft Touch Pack for Windows XP software to optimize the touch screen user interface. The Touch Pack’s customizable Program Launcher organizes software programs into categories, Microsoft said, and uses large buttons and icons to make it easy to find and open favorite applications.
Mitchell said Microsoft’s next roadmap step will take place in the Windows Vista release timeframe, expected in late Q3 or earlyQ4 of this year, with UMPCs running the upcoming operating system at that time.
Pricing will be determined by OEMs and is anticipated in the $599 to $999 range. “Part of our objective in creating the original reference design for the UMPC category was to engineer a platform that’s both very compact and, through careful component choice, possible to sell for $500 MSRP,” Mitchell said.
OEMs expected to launch Intel chip-based UMPCs in 2006 include Founder and Samsung in Q2, with a model debuting from Asus shortly thereafter. Models using the VIA processor are expected to arrive from TabletKiosk and PaceBlade Japan, also in Q2.
