Ultrabooks? Why information cascade can decide the fate of Intel’s newest technology
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/ultrabooks-still-fail-to-catch-on/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrabook
http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/sponsors-of-tomorrow/ultrabook.html
Have you ever heard of the term “ultrabook”? It is perfectly normal if you haven’t, in fact the spell check add-on that I’m currently using also fails to recognize the term. Ultrabook is a new class of laptop, introduced by Intel in 2011, which is designed to be ultra-thin, ultra-light and ultra-responsive (some say it’s Intel’s response to Apple’s MacBook, and we will soon see why). Combine it with hardware and technologies such as multi-touchscreens and solid-state drives, and you get a type of competitive product that can swamp the P.C. market. However, things did not go so well for Intel, and as the article above points out, ultrabooks were still struggling to get a fair share of the market a year after the technology’s introduction.
So what happened? Analysts in the tech industry have been listing all sorts of reason: relatively high price, immature development, marketing failure, etc. While all these reasons should be considered valid, one should realize that Apple’s similarly designed MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, despite being in a higher price range, have been experiencing great success and can easily put ultrabook to shame. Upon learning about the concept of information cascade in network science, I believe that it is the ultimate reason for ultrabook’s clumsy start; Due to ultrabook’s similarity with MacBook, when customers tried to research the perfect solution for mobile computing use, they would naturally be bombarded with information (whether they’re informed reports from tech-savvy reporters or blind appraisal from Apple fanboys) of the MacBook, and to make things worse, when an uninformed customer would make a similar decision, they would simply look at the people around them and eventually end up picking a MacBook, due to the fact that the Macbook has been here longer in the market and most people who wanted a portable laptop already owned a Mac.
Due to the reason mentioned above, MacBook has been dominating the ultra-thin laptop sector for quite a while. However, after the recent kick-off of the touch-oriented Windows 8, a better marketing effort by Intel (they have just recently renovated their ultrabook webpage), and the introduction of ultrabooks with more unique “form factor” such as the Asus Taichi (which has a normal screen and a touch-enabled screen on its lid), ultrabooks have finally been gaining traction in the ultra-portable market and luring buyers who were originally uninterested. Interests for ultrabook has double, as observed here by this ultrabook news website: http://ultrabooknews.com/2012/10/30/ultrabook-convertible-marketing, and it’s only going to get better thanks to the information cascade among customers. In fact, I just personally purchased the Acer Aspire S7 ultrabook, and I simply can’t wait to be amazed by its FHD touchscreen and 256gb SSD!
– JeffWhy
Awesome.