White-books a way behind

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Industry watcher IDC’s PC hardware analyst Michael Sager cannot foresee a time when white-book will capture half of the Australian market.

"This year white-book will not take off, maybe 2006. If they can get 30 percent of notebooks within four years, that would be a somewhat reasonable target," Sager says.

"It probably depends on the manufacturing. They have to decide upon what the standard notebook platform is going to be.  In a desktop the components are standard, you can mess around with a tower and build it however you want.  Notebooks are an entirely different scenario and, until standardisation happens, it’s going to be an inhibitor to white-book growth."

Kevin Ho, product manager at drive manufacturer Seagate Technology, says, however, that the white-book market is still new and the industry had to facilitate initiatives to generate awareness and build infrastructure for future growth.

"Through these efforts, the white-book market will grow accordingly.The whitebook market should continue to grow with the overall demand of mobile computing," he says.

Local assembler Westan abandoned the white-book market several years ago but is still ‘keeping on eye’ on the market, says Westan managing director Victor Aghtan.

"We were one of the first players in the white-book market with TwinHead but at the time the quality was a bit unstable and eventually we had to give it up because it was hurting us more than it was benefiting us," Aghtan says.

"It’s also easier for the channel to adapt if you have a standard platform."

Chip manufacturing giant Intel is working with third parties to provide a number of standardised ‘building blocks’ for white-books to coincide with next year’s launch of its planned Napa platform, the chip maker’s executives said at the XChange Tech Builder conference in Las Vegas last month.

Such standardisation will be a "good opportunity for white-book manufacturers," says Intel area sales manager for Australia & New Zealand,Andrew McLean.

"Thanks to standards, local system builders can build thin, attractive, Centrinobased notebooks now," McLean says.

The problems
  • With desktops, standards are set in stone
  • White-book market needs to facilitate initiatives to generate awareness
  • Some builders have tried white-books, but failed
  • Easier for channel to adapt to a standard platform
"Standards are also particularly important when you start thinking about servicing products which are two or three years old.  If there are standards-based spares and they have better access to them that can only help local system builders.’

Optima’s Ung is yet to see results from Intel’s push towards modular design but is still hopeful it will be a boost to whitebook builders.

"Intel want to have a modularised white-book concept so people can build to an industry standard, to allow them to put a product together like the desktop by having different industry standard components. They have been pushing modular for about two years, but I haven’t seen any success yet," Ung says.

"Still, Intel pursued the tier 1 manufacturers in Taiwan to support the white-book market. This sort of modular model will provide flexibility to the local vendor, who can then offer custom-built products to the customer’s requirements."
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