Who is the MacBook Air's Target Market?

One of the first things I thought of when I saw the new MacBook Air thin laptop: About time.

An ultraportable notebook has long been the missing link in Apple's portable offerings. The MacBook Air fills that place nicely. Here's an ultraskinny view:

Then, I began to think that it looked somewhat familiar. Emphasis on the "somewhat"--clearly, the MacBook Air has Apple's design touches all over. But, I remembered the Fujitsu Lifebook Q2010-- which came out almost two years ago, and measured at just 0.75 of an inch thick. Here's its impressively skinny photo:

What's the Difference?

The MacBook Air is impressively thinner on the whole--it measures 0.76-inch at its thickest point, and 0.16-inch at its thinnest; but, in that context, it almost feels more evolutionary than revolutionary.

Of course, MacBook Air has some beefier specs, including Intel's miniaturized (60-percent smaller than usual) 1.6-GHz or 1.8-GHz Core 2 Duo processor (the Fujitsu Q only used a Core Solo processor).

The Fujitsu, presumably because of its across-the-board thickness, was able to include more ports and slots, including an SD Card slot, PC Card slot, two USB ports, and a FireWire 400 port. By comparison, Apple's MacBook Air lacks most of those: It includes only one USB port and a Mini-DVI port.

Executive Jewelry

Now, here's the rub: Just two years ago, Fujitsu's Paul Moore, director of product marketing, called the Q Series "executive jewelry." Notebook PCs have seen a big surge in popularity over the past two years on the whole--but ultraportables, such as the Q series, or even the Sony Vaio TZ series that Steve Jobs compared the MacBook Air to in his keynote, have remained outlyers.

So . . . yes, it's cool looking; yes, it's impossibly thin . . . but, who's going to buy the $1799 MacBook Air? (And that's the base price.)

Quite typically, one would point to such a notebook as appealing to corporate audiences, but wait, Apple doesn't generally appeal to the corporate market. Nor does Apple go after the corporate market--the company has left that to the PC universe.

Ross Rubin, NPD analyst, doesn't think Apple is using the MacBook Air as a sideways entry into the corporate market; he notes there have been no such channel or distribution announcements to support that sort of move. There may be some crossover, as we've seen with the iPhone, he says, but only with road warriors who don't have to contend with a centralized IT department.

As a long-time champion of the ultraportable category--personally, I won't carry it if it's over 3.5 pounds--I'd like to think that Apple's push into the ultraportable space may finally be what helps broadens the market and appeal for such compact notebooks. If the market gets larger, then maybe--thanks to ye olde rules of volume and demand--the prices on ultraportables will finally come done, as has happened on fuller-sized notebook computers. Can't wait!

For full coverage of Macworld Expo 2008, go to the PCW Mac Info Center.

Comments

aplause!!!!!!!!!!!!! writer(apple loyalist?????????????)is so exited about the skinny mac without muscle.......

mariocatral

January 17, 2008

2:14 AM PT