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Mini-Notebook, UMPC, Netbook, MID…we all knew that eventually the market would dictate which of these forms would succeed and which would fail. Rumbles in the industry are indicating that may be happening sooner rather then later.

Over the weekend, DigiTimes reported that PC vendors and resellers are feeling decidedly queasy about Intel’s heavy push behind it’s line of MID platforms, and quietly expressing that fact to Intel. The more optimistic amongst them feel that at the very least, MIDs won’t hit the big time until Q4 09, rather than Q1 09 as Intel is predicting. They feel (and I believe accurately) that the wave of new UMPC/Netbook models and the quiet recession in the worldwide economy will hamper the MID (Mobile Internet Device) form. Most pundits define MIDs as slate style, touch screen mobile PCs, with or without a sliding keyboard.

Vendors see the MID form being squeezed between miniature laptops forms (UMPC/Netbook) on one side and smartphones on the other. It certainly doesn’t help that recent releases in the MID space by Gigabyte and Lenovo are not cutting much ice in the marketplace while major UMPC releases keep coming through the summer/fall from MSi, Asus, Acer and Dell (among others). When back to school shoppers are outfitting high school/college students, small, cheap device in a conventional laptop form looks like a tool while the sexier MIDs look like flashy toys.

It is essential that Intel get their vast reseller/vendor channels behind MIDs if they hope the form to succeed against the intense competition in the mobile computer space. Vendors however are reluctant to waste holiday shelf space on products that won’t sell, especially in challenging economic times.

Personally I love the MID form, with it’s ability to be used as both a tablet and a more standard computer. However, I would not be at all surprised if MIDs aren’t able to catch the same fire that UMPCs are bottling as they are being embraced by mainstream tech buyers. MIDs also seem to have trouble getting down to the low prices that are helping to drive UMPCs.

What do you think? Do you see MIDs fading away altogether or into a niche market as stores are innundated with miniature laptops or will they rally once people get tired of “toy” laptops?

Zealot (445 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).