Ultra-Mobile PC (part 1)

It isn't often that Microsoft announces a completely new
concept in computing, but at CeBIT 2006 in Hanover, Germany,
the software giant finally unveiled details about its
Origami Project to a worldwide audience.

Microsoft created the Origami Project to develop (with
various hardware and software partners) a new type of
computer that falls in-between the size of a typical PDA and
tablet PC, uses a standard Windows operating system and costs
less than $1000: the Ultra-mobile PC, or UMPC.

The Microsoft team originally used "Origami" as a code name,
and they liked it so much that they kept it for the project's
public community Web site. One of the program's managers was
interested in Japanese culture and liked the name, which
refers to the art of intricate paper folded sculptures.

Clearly, there is a need for a smaller form factor than the
traditional notebook PC. PDAs don't run standard Windows OS,
and many tablets are too heavy to carry around all the time.
Gartner, an IT research Web site, posits that the UMPC space
should have the following advantages:

* An eight-hour battery life.
* A sub-$400 price.
* Low-cost, compelling content bundles from partners like
Intel and Microsoft.
* A better Microsoft shell/interface running on top of
Vista.
* Text entry options beyond thumb-typing.
* Dock-and-go synchronization, requiring minimal user
interaction.
* Sustained market momentum from Microsoft and Intel.

These are all worthy goals, but the initial UMPC units won't
deliver on all of these points at first. In this post, we'll
show you what Microsoft has planned for the UMPC and what is
still to come. We'll also talk about how these new computers
will work and how they differ from tablets and PDAs.

Ultra-mobile PC Software

The UMPC is unique in that it runs regular Windows OS -- it
currently runs XP Tablet edition and will run Vista in the
future. While there are many PDAs and PDA/phone combinations
that run Windows Mobile (such as the Palm Treo 700w) it isn't
the same as running the stock XP OS loaded onto millions of
desktop and laptop computers. Windows Mobile requires new
versions of applications to be compatible with that OS, and
the applications have to take advantage of the smaller
screens on these devices. The goal of UMPC is to
run off-the-shelf Windows applications, with no medications
whatsoever other than supporting the tablet/touch screen
features.

The UMPCs that Microsoft announced are small devices -- they
weigh less than two pounds and have seven-inch video screens.
This puts it in a new market segment not currently served by
any particular manufacturer. It is smaller than the smallest
tablet PCs that are currently available from Motion and
Fujitsu, and lighter than the Aopen MiniPC (a desktop model
that doesn't include any screen at all). It is also bigger
than the OQO PC. The other distinction is that the UMPC will
be lessexpensive than the typical tablet.

"Origami isn't an iPod killer per se, it's rather a new class
of device that will compete with other devices that cost
about the same," says Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at
Jupiter Research, using the original code name for the UMPC.
"That means portable media players, game machines, GPS units
and the like will face some new challenges. Much like there
were PCs with TV tuners long before MCE, the power of MCE was
really the 10-foot UI. The power of Origami is really in the
10" UI."

Bill Mitchell, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Windows
Mobile Platforms Division said, "While the first generation of
UMPCs will run Windows XP Tablet PC Edition 2005, future
models will run on Windows Vista."

Ultra-mobile PC Hardware

This isn't the first time that Microsoft has tried to promote
touch-screen tablets: Windows Tablet PCs have been around for
nearly a decade, and XP Tablet edition is on its second
iteration with all sorts of usability improvements. But the
UMPC is another step in this evolution.

In one report, Bill Mitchell said, "The touch-enhanced
display can be used as an on-screen QWERTY keyboard [using
Dial Keys] to navigate, or users can employ a stylus to input
handwritten information. They can also input content with
a traditional keyboard, linked either by USB port or wireless
Bluetooth connectivity."

Not all implementations of all UMPCs will have Bluetooth
ports, but the initial crop of vendors have promised this,
along with support for various USB and BT keyboards. This is
very similar to the tablet PCs that are currently on the
market: some come with keyboards and all offer support for
either pen or keyboard input devices.

Other input ports are planned for the devices, including:

* Wired Ethernet and WiFi networking connectors.
* Compact Flash card slots.
* USB v 2.0 ports.
* An external VGA monitor port.
* Various buttons and connectors for audio operations.
* Support for stereo microphones with built-in noise
reduction and echo cancellation.
* A remote control for the Media Center PC application.

There will be units with a variety of processors, including
the Intel Celeron M, Intel Pentium M and VIA C7-M. No AMD
chipsets are in any of the announced plans yet.

Microsoft's goal was to use off-the-shelf displays that are
in common consumer electronics devices to keep the costs down.
They settled on seven-inch VGA displays that had 800 x 480
native resolution and can handle 800 x 600 with some loss of
quality.

"The form factor was based around a 7-inch display panel,
a size that is currently a standard size in the electronics
industry due to broad adoption of that size display in the
portable DVD player and automotive markets," said Microsoft's
Otto Berkes in a newspaper interview. "Why use some new
custom size when a potentially good one already exists?"

These plans for the UMPC differ from the existing Motion
Computing tablets. The Motion displays use high-contrast,
non-glare, active digitizers, meaning that the pen sold with
the tablet is the only way to enter information. The UMPC
displays are general touchscreens that can work with a finger
or any other object for input. "We designed our 8.4-inch
display to meet the needs of legacy enterprise applications,
because many of these applications are designed for SVGA
(800 x 600) resolution," said Bert Haskell, a product manager
for Motion Computing. The UMPC displays are designed for
showing widescreen movies.