Apple seen delivering "ultra-portable" at Macworld
Apple Computer could introduce an "ultra-portable PC" that employs NAND-based flash memory in time for the January Macworld trade show in San Francisco, one Wall Street analyst says.
"We believe these new products could start in notebook products with combo-drives (NAND and HDD) or ultra-portables (NAND only), and could be released in time for MacWorld," Reitzes told clients.
Intel, which supplies microprocessors to Apple, has made no secret of its plans to build NAND flash — a type of solid-state memory commonly found in consumer electronics like digital audio players — into its own PC logicboard designs.
At its developers conference this past March, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker said it would deliver NAND flash features in its forthcoming notebook platform, dubbed Santa Rosa, due in early 2007.
"We need to have devices that boot up very rapidly," Sean Maloney, the head of Intel's mobility group, told developers at the conference. "The same way you come off a plane and get a cell phone signal immediately."
Reitzes also said his surveys and visits to Apple retail locations show a "very positive" reaction to the company's current line of notebook computers: the MacBook and MacBook Pro.
The analyst expects sales of the portables to help drive overall Mac unit growth of 5 percent year-over-year, or 12 percent sequentially, to 1.24 million during Apple's third quarter.
"Checks show the education segment should also lend support to estimates, given June is the time school districts exhaust annual budgets," Reitzes wrote. "With the education segment accounting for approximately 25 percent of US Mac unit sales, we believe both June and July (when new budgets come into play) could see solid growth, especially for MacBooks and iMacs."
The analyst maintains a Buy rating on shares of Apple with a price target of $95.
190 Comments
May I dub thee "MacThin"!
When can I place my order!?
Please give me 11" or smaller, still squeezing in dual cores and a real GPU. With the option to connect to a larger display and keyboard when needed, I'd have it all.
Just let me know when I can place an order.
I was playing around with an old IBM workbook, which is TINY, THIN and runs completely off flash memory, granted it only had a few megs of storage space, it still seemed like the future of portables, back in 1998.
If Apple could streamline this type of notebook, the world would be a better place!
MacBook Nano????