Friday, August 12, 2011

PC makers demand more Intel cash to build $999 ultrabooks

PC makers demand more Intel cash to build $999 ultrabooks, article.

So Apple is now not only making the coolest computers and devices, but they are also selling them cheaper than the bamboo brands can manage! What a brave and remarkable new world it is.

Update:
Stephen points to this upcoming netbook from Asus. Two hunnert bucks is pretty amazing. It looks like in a few years they'll be *paying* us to use technology!

5 comments:

Stephen A said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Stephen A said...

They are made in exactly the same factories with the same hardware.

Check this out:
Asus X101


Asus practising low end disruption at the finest, Not an Air clone, different cheaper and good enough.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Interesting. Looks like a full sized keyboard, might be a good portable typewriter.

Bruce said...

The PC business seems so strange to me.

If I buy a bottle of olive oil at the store, they don't ask me what I'm using it for. They don't charge different prices for salad or cooking. Yet when manufacturers buy chips from Intel or Windows licenses from Microsoft this is common practice.

I think this is why a decent Windows laptop can be bought for $500.00 or so, but a Windows laptop with SSD costs $1,000. You can buy a SSD and install it yourself for $300, but somehow Intel and Microsoft charge extra if a manufacturer uses their chips and OS with an SSD.

On another subject, part of what Apple does with it's excess cash is pledge to suppliers like Samsung that they will buy a ton of Flash memory for many years. In exchange for a big, long term commitment from Apple, Samsung gives them a good price.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Yeah.
Re the different prices, I think any company does this with anything, *if* they can get away with it. For example, in a burger bar recently I got a can of Coke which had printed on it that it could only be sold as part of a six-pack, not separately.