New PC computers offer features that businesses will not buy for employees. In a world where businesses will not upgrade from Windows 7 to 8.1 — why should they? — who is going to use precious business resources to buy these for employees in cubicles?
Depth-sensing cameras, for example, are popping up in high-end desktops and laptops. Intel vice president Navin Shenoy said his company’s “RealSense” camera can recognize its owner’s face and unlock a PC without requiring a typed password. Intel is also promoting software that uses the camera in games that respond to a player’s head or hand movements.
PC makers are borrowing ideas from tablets, with laptops that are increasingly thin and lightweight, with longer battery life. Dell’s new XPS 13 notebook has a screen that extends nearly to the edge of the frame, like the screen on many tablets. By eliminating wider borders, Dell says it can fit a larger screen into a smaller frame.
Several companies have hybrid or convertible devices that resemble a tablet with a physical keyboard attached. Lenovo, the Chinese company that has become the world’s biggest seller of PCs, is rolling out several new models of its Yoga hybrid, first introduced last year, with a keyboard that fully folds back so you can hold the display like a tablet.
Lenovo CEO Yang Yuanqing told The Associated Press in an interview that the new “convertible” hybrids will eventually replace the laptop computer for most people, because they are lighter and have longer battery life. “Now it’s only a cost issue,” he said. Many of the new hybrids are priced well above $500, while cheaper laptops are available. “We definitely should bring the cost down,” he added.
What are the crucial edges that this cutting-edge technology makes possible?
Why are these “must have” features?
By the time you need these features, the units will cost $499.
Where are the profit margins?
It’s not 1995 any longer.
