Trend

Notebooks on a slimming diet

Customers today want thinner and lighter notebooks with high battery life and enhanced wireless capabilities, finds Kusum Makhija.

Vendors across the board are busy pitching for enterprise customers with a range of sleek notebooks. For instance, HP launched nine models in March, all targeted at the enterprise; HP has a thin ‘n’ lite range, and a tablet PC range. Another major joining the bandwagon is Lenovo, aggressively marketing its tablet PC and ultra-sleek models under the IBM ThinkPad umbrella.

According to IDC, the notebook PC segment was the star performer in Q2 05, showing massive growth of 60 percent sequentially and 138 percent year-on-year, and crossing the one lakh barrier. Says Dinender Sharma, Manager, Computing Products and Channels Research, IDC India, “Notebook PCs emerged as a preferred choice over desktops due to factors of convenience and productivity. Centrino-based notebooks constituted two-thirds of total shipments. In terms of market rankings, HP stayed at the top followed by Lenovo and Acer.” With price points either falling or stabilising across all form factors, IDC expects the momentum to continue in the coming months.

Plenty of features

The basic premise of sleek models finding traction with enterprise users is the pain point of the heavy notebooks Sanjiv Menon Country Manager Products Lenovo India

Thin notebooks can generally be categorised into sleek and the ultra-sleek notebooks. While sleek would be something like 2.75 kg to 2.25 kg, the ultra-sleek drops to as low as 1.1 kg. The ultra-sleek range from various vendors generally sport Intel Centrino processors.

Weight is undoubtedly a critical factor, while battery life is equally important. Batteries in notebooks usually last for an average of four to five hours. As more computer users prefer sleek or ultra-sleek notebooks, and access networks from remote locations and public wireless networks, user and system security have become top priority. In addition, people also looks for built-in wireless functions. While built-in optical drives do matter, users of sleek notebooks find external drives equally acceptable.

“In trying to compromise on weight, we have not reduced features. Enterprise users demand extreme power- packed features,” says Raghuraman, Country Manager, Business Notebooks, HP India.

Adds D Sathyanarayan, Marketing Manager, Dell Computer India, “The typical user of sleek models seeks productivity along with mobility. High-end applications such as CAD require larger memories—and in any case, users of applications such as CAD are not really too concerned about weight and portability given the nature of their work.”

Devita Saraf, Executive Director, Zenith Computers states, “Having a great product and price are important, but when you sell to the top person in a company, performance is everything.”

Mobile workers

Today’s working lifestyle is not limited to the closed environment of the office. People carry work home, and many of them deal with companies across the world; in addition, odd hours are a fact of life. Owning a laptop has become essential for corporate whiz kids. Also, with notebooks becoming more affordable, their popularity is growing.

With the rise in the popularity of the Internet, business transactions have become real-time and online. Today, work today can be managed from anywhere, be it a hotel, mall, campus or coffee shop. Notebooks help you stay connected wherever you are, irrespective of the distance.

Wipro, which launched its LittleGenius Ultra Slim notebook series around three months back, believes that the small form factor is becoming the norm for middle and senior management due to its portability. Says Anil Jain, General Manager, Personal Computing Business, Wipro Technologies, “Mobility as a concept is gaining popularity. Customers are today moving from desktops to notebooks, and executives who travel a lot prefer sleek models that are easy to carry. A sleek notebook is also characterised by performance and lots of mains-free operating freedom.”

According to Sanjiv Menon, Country Manager, Products, Lenovo India, “The basic premise of sleek models finding traction with enterprise users is the pain point of the heavy notebooks.”

Vendor strategies

“We are soon launching an ad campaign, ‘My World in 1.3 Kgs,’ on our new Ultra Slim model. We also have an aggressive channel strategy to push this product into the market. Wipro is also targeting its existing customer base to upsell to them,” says Jain.

Users of all notebooks, especially of ultra-sleek notebook, who are executives on the move, look for unique support activities. “Our ultra- sleek models are normally used by CXOs of various companies. We have a focussed approach to reach out to these customers. Our communication highlights the ultra-wide screens, weight, long battery life, thickness etc.” says Sathyanarayan of Dell.

For Lenovo, consolidating the IBM product line is the biggest challenge. Says Menon, “As of now, we are consolidating our product line, and with the addition of the recently launched tablet PC range to our kitty, we hope to secure the top place in the enterprise market soon.” The company is looking at increasing its visibility in the enterprise space by approaching CXO/CTO-level people.

Customers are today moving from desktops to notebooks, and executives who travel a lot prefer sleek models that are easy to carry Anil Jain General manager Personal Computing Business Wipro Technologies	We also see many customers switching from desktops to notebooks due to better price propositions and the inherent advantages of mobility products D Sathyanarayan Marketing Manager Dell Computer India

Trends in mobile land

The notebook market’s growth will be driven by education and BFSI. SMBs and possibly SOHO will also contribute. In terms of technology, the notebook will not be a laggard to desktop performance, and the majority of office productivity activities can be completed. Possibly, some high-end design or high-data intensive work may still be done on the desktop platform. In terms of component trends, wide screens are likely to become popular. The existing specs of 256 MB RAM and 40 GB HDD will get upgraded to 512 MB and 60 GB HDD, and these will become standard. Combo drives will give way to DVD dual option. More powerful dual core platforms will get introduced from processor OEMs.

Given current trends, the Indian sleek notebook market is poised to grow robustly due to increasing demand for mobile computing, and, to some extent, the growing use of wireless telephony in the country. “We expect adoption of broadband, wireless and gaming to drive the demand for mobility products. We also see many customers switching from desktops to notebooks due to better price propositions and the inherent advantages of mobility products,” comments Sathyanarayan of Dell.

Sleek notebooks are used by a specific group of people. Across the country, users (especially in the education segment) are gradually replacing desktops with notebooks, but for most of these users weight is not a major concern.

Says S Raghu, Senior Product Manager, Acer India, “Though many attribute the surge in notebook sales to pricing, there has been an equally aggressive pitch by manufacturers to position different notebooks according to the profile of individual buyers...for this reason there is ample scope for growth. Till date, vendors have made the right moves and have been ably supported by external factors. The notebook market has grown tremendously during the previous year. We foresee similar growth during the current fiscal.”

kusum@expresscomputeronline.com