White-books a way behind

Local system builder Pioneer Computers Australia has been building white-books for eight years. A lack of standardisation leaves system builders at the mercy of component manufacturers, says Pioneer Computers Australia product manager Jeff Li. "For a desktop you can build them locally, you can get the motherboard and everything locally and support locally, but for notebook you have to have a long term, good relationship with one of the top five or 10 notebook manufacturers in the world."

These manufacturers are unlikely to agree on notebook standards in the near future, Li says. "When one company tries to go open standard, no-one follows them because they want to control the market. They wanted their own standard to get more market share," he says.

"These top five factories try to kill each other in Taiwan and China, so how are they going to reach agreement on a standard?"

Sony Vaio business manager Gordon Kerr agrees that white-book builders should not put their hopes in standardisation.

"If you’d asked me 18 months ago I would have said there was a good future for notebook standardisation, looking forward now I’m thinking otherwise because of the direction that laptops are taking. Now they have multimedia adaptors and socket and as many things as you can fit onto it, because it’s becoming a utility device," Kerr says.

ASUS' Chen: White-book still has its niche

"Standardisation will also help Sony’s build-to-order offerings. It will mean a quicker time to market for new models and new technology. Instead of there being a six to eight month window, we can bring it down to three months – which means the position for the whitebook is not there."

Notebooks have also become fashion accessories like mobile phones before them as, unlike desktop computers, people spend more time with their notebook and have a far more intimate relationship with it.

"Just like some people update their mobile phone every three months, people are updating their notebook every six months for the new styling even if the processor is the same – it’s based on styling and feature set," Kerr says.

"I think white-book will exist to a certain extent for some of the corporate people who just want a standard shape. In the mid-sized notebook, where they’re not caring too much about design, then there is a position for white-book."

A fashionable notebook is something to be seen with, agrees Hewlett-Packard new channels manager Rosalie Boyd. "A notebook is still seen as a status symbol, like the car you drive. A desktop sits in your office, it’s not attached to you, whereas a notebook is really an emotive buy."

Standardisation of notebooks will result in a lowest common denominator design, leaving them looking like "a big brick", says ASUS Australia/New Zealand director Ted Chen. "Of course notebooks can go standardised, but standardised means you can not have the optimal thermal and space settings, it means your notebook will look like a big brick. So long as people are happy to carry a heavy brick when they travel around the world, the white-book market will get up."

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