Customers are waiting for XP drivers for the Aigo MID and sales appear to be suffering as a result. Early adopters simply don’t trust a Moblin-based device to deliver exactly what they need and want the option of running XP otherwise they’re not going to buy. It’s not that they don’t want Moblin, its because they want a choice. Without XP and at current prices, they’re not buying. I’m sure that customers in France and Italy are happy with their low-cost carrier offerings but there’s a billion more people in the western world that don’t have that option.

How do we know this? We speak to the resellers. They tell us that there are early adopter customers waiting in the wings for XP-based MIDs but they won’t buy until they know the option is available. The resellers won’t even put their money down on large orders until the XP drivers are there which means prices remain high as volumes stay low. We hear what customers are saying too. These advanced, early-adopter users want choices and value. The current offerings are locked down to an OS that doesn’t give them VFM. There’s a lot of people out there that want to run a mature desktop OS and use the Aigo MID as a productive UMPC. They will not trust their personal or business processes to a fresh, problematic, asia-sourced operating system based on Moblin.

People are trying hard to get it working but there are a lot of potential customers out there, that don’t have the time to mess around and will simply hold back and buy something else in the meantime. It isn’t difficult for these customers to justify buying a netbook. Intel and their hardware partners need to get focused and bring the required software to the market to provide badly-needed confidence in their products.

Maybe today’s product announcement gives us hope. Maybe the Kohjinsha announcement too but without real drivers in the wild, it’s not enough for customers.

When we talk about ‘Mobile Internet’ the first thing we often think about is mobile Web. We’ve heard about ‘Full Internet Experience’ and ‘Internet in your Pocket’ and seen diagram after diagram showing how a full-fat 800×480 browser is the key but the truth is that it is just a small element of what’s picking up steam in the mobile Internet device market.  In fact, the mobile Web is just one of the things enabled by mobile Internet. Its a strong focal point but it would be a complete mistake to think that that is the only thing a MID is going to be.

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I try to stear clear of the many unconfirmed or uncited reports that come through Digitimes but this is one that you might want to keep an eye on. Apparently, Intel will be introducing updates to the Z-series (Silverthorne) CPUs in 2009. The CPUs will have higher clocks and there will be a new chipset say Digitimes. One assumes that the manufacturing process on the CPUs is getting better and higher quality (overclockable) parts are now coming off the production line. Digitimes mentions two chipsets in its brief report. The UP15W and the UL11L. The UP15W variant is new and the UL11L is the low power variant with the video decoding hardware removed (apparently found in the Aigo MID but I haven’t confirmed this yet.)

Current SCH (Poulsbo) chipset variants. (From this Intel PDF document.)

There has been lots of attention around this end of the blogosphere lately about a site launched by Intel and Asus. The site is called WePC, and it hopes to collectively gather the best ideas for a laptop. Users can submit just an idea, or a complete idea of their dream computer. Submissions can be voted on by the community, and the site says that Asus will build the best computer (based on community votes), and Intel will power it.

The idea seems pretty cool and I’m very excited to see what ends up happening with this project. I’m impressed by the site itself and the time that Asus and Intel put into it. The submission form includes a few fields to enter a name and description for your idea or computer, and even a widget to let you draw your computer.

Have an idea? I encourage you all to submit it to the site; this is a great opportunity to give one of the biggest netbook manufacturers some feedback and suggestions, even if you idea doesn’t come to fruition. Be sure to check out some of the ideas that have already been submitted.

Christmas came early this week. I’ve had three new devices in 24 hours! Yesterday it was the Everun Notes, today i’ve got the Aigo MID. It turns out I might have a new software build too (V030 5005) as there is a software updater installed that others have not got on their Aigos. Naturally i’m going through a software update as I write and myself and JKK will be putting the old and new side-by-side in the session later to see what the improvements are. I’m impressed that a new software stack has been released so quickly and it bodes well for the future.

Personally I’m very excited about the device. I’ve already declared my love for the Compal-designed form factor a number of times but had a few reservation about the software (see the M528 hands-on weekend report.) Midinux on the Aigo seems to be working well though. Coolfox is working (although FF3 would be better,) media player and IM, basic PIM facilities, BT DUN and file transfer over my N82 all with a nicely finished (although not iPhone-standard) UI but the most exciting thing are the possibilities that lie ahead. It’s really stirring ideas about how and where I can use this device and most importantly, what the growing Aigo owners community is going to do with this device. With the SFR Mi PC and the Gigabyte M528 due to launch soon and the Benq MID already out there with a similar Midinux software stack, I can see a big community of people jumping on board. Eee owners, Nokia Tablet Owners and people looking forward to the Open Pandora devices will know exactly what I mean!

Aigo MID. Live session 2200 GMT+1 (post time + 3hrs) at UMPCPortal.com/live

Ustream live recording is available if you’re thinking about buying the Aigo MID.

Thanks to Mobilx.eu for sending this evaluation device over.

Update: Mobilx now have a pre-order page up.

Intel has just published a list of the currently and nearly-available MIDs along with regions and store names to help you track one down. It would be nice to see more regions and more products but this is a great start and I hope they keep up the process of publishing info like this. Customers are crying out for it!

You’ll find the Aigo (China), Benq S6 (Italy), Clarion (Q4 in the U.S.A.) Fujitsu U2010 (not in Europe) Kohjinsha SC3 (Japan, APAC), Lenovo U8 (China-only), Panasonic CFU1 (projects only) and Willcom D4 (Japan.)

Conspicuous by its absence is the Gigabyte M528.

The full list and details can be found on the Intel Software Network blogs.

Lincroft is the ‘system on chip’  that powers Moorestown, Intel’s next-gen Mobile Internet Device platform. CPU, GPU, video decode hardware, video encode hardware [Note: Try finding that on the average laptop. Justin.tv needs to watch closely!] and 2D video hardware. Langwell is the comms silicon that connects Moorestown to all the peripherals that are required in a Mobile Internet Device. Its the USB bus, the audio bus, serial, video, etc etc. Think of Moorestown as the bare motherboard which comes pre-loaded with Lincroft, the combined CPU, Northbridge and video card, and Langwell as the Southbridge which provides all the comms interfaces. On to Morestown, OEMs will add memory, power circuitry, comms chips, audio chips, BIOS, storage, cams, mics, speakers and everything else that’s required to make a MID. Hopefuly it all gets wrapped up in an exciting bit of industrial design and loaded with top quality software!

You can see Moorestown demo’d, kind of, on the video that Engadget got hold of today.

And what about that ’10x lower idle power’ figure that keeps being mentioned? Well, it means that the platform, that’s Moorestown, will idle nicely. Like a smartphone. All-day. The software will need to be developed such that it powers down all those peripherals that aren’t needed though and as for total system power drain (i.e. How long will a device last on a 10wh battery) I’m afraid its an unknown right now. Moorestown will account for a significant power saving but if an OEM goes and slaps a 2W WiFi module on it…

Intel have the same problems as all smartphone manufacturers now. It’s about guiding the OEMs and software developers and giving them the right components from the MID ecosystem.

I didn’t ever expected to be covering voice-capable devices on UMPCPortal but it looks like that’s the way it’s going!

No prizes for guessing what company said that! ZDnet highlights it with "Intel slams ‘slow’ iPhone ARM CPU."  Gizmodo follows up. Engadget too (along with a lot of comments) and now it’s reached the front page of Techmeme. Oops!

I’m all behind Intel for their work in squashing the X86 architecture down to smartphone-sized levels with Moorestown and there’s an element of truth in the fact the the iPhone is underpowered for Internet apps but the way I see it is that it’s not really about CPUs anymore and as such, it comes across rather uncool to focus on it, especially when your partners are behind schedule on getting mobile Internet devices out of the door and you still have work to do to reach smartphone levels of power efficiency.

Both ARM and Intel have reached similar (consumer acceptable) territory in terms of watt/performance [*1] with their respective core architectures and yes, Intel’s solutions are probably more powerful and will definitely be attractive to the power-user but that’s a tiny part of the equation that goes together to make a thrilling consumer device. Intel’s main task now is about the integration of the CPU, GPU, controllers and radios into the smallest space possible with the highest platform efficiency. Both ARM and Intel’s ecosystem is highly capable of achieving that but there’s even more to consider. Industrial design,marketing and most importantly, software.

Intel are betting on one of the most fragmented software environments out there – Linux. They want to create a new, mobile-focused stack with it and surround it with quality ISVs. ARM’s partners want to use Linux too but they already have well-supported stacks with the same ISVs and big dev communities around them to. To drive a new Linux stack you need control, lead (in-house, paid, full-time) developers, Linux distribution partners and, if you want to take advantage of the existing application base, the skills of the people that wrote them. That means you need to be Linux-geek-cool and you need to show the dev community that you are a caring, sharing type. You also need to have an easy channel for them. An app, store. It’s critical now, not only for the developers, but to enable an important revenue stream in e-commerce for Intel and the partners. Moblin doesn’t have either of those two elements. Highlighting your advantages is one thing but making statements that attack the other side (where some of your community sits) won’t win you any hearts in the open-source world.

To be fair, I wasn’t there and haven’t been able to hear the comments in context and having interviewed Pankaj Kedia a few times, I know that he knows what he’s talking about. Add Steve Jobs’ recent comments into the mix and the stones that came from the ARM camp a few months ago and you can understand why these comments happen. Intel’s ultra mobile products are good and getting better and there may even be an Apple product in the works that gives Intel this confidence but when I hear comments like this, it just sounds cheap.

*1 The latest ARM-based devices have almost closed the 9-second penalty I demonstrated a year ago. See this article about the Archos 5.

Update. Intel has corrected its comments in a statemnet here.