When the whole UMPC effort launched a year ago, I expected some real innovation from the CE community. Unfortunately, at first we got a raft of high-priced (sometimes as high as $1,700), limited function, mixed battery life, and in some cases, strange form factor devices. Disappointed, I thought that it would essentially be the end for the whole UMPC effort. No device got any major market traction, and the world’s attention seemed focused on other modes of portable access (mainly mobile, as best illustrated by the current iPhone media frenzy).

My thinking altered somewhat by two recent product announcements, the first involves the “$189 laptop” announcement from ASUS. While somewhat flawed, the concept of a 15 second boot time, sub 2 pound Linux powered laptop, bundled with some form of Open Office suite, at such low price point makes an interesting option for those times you want the convenience of a fuller keyboard, and limited offline capabilities. Will it be market moving? No, but at least it is in the discretionary purchase range of consumers, unlike the recent Palm Foleo. It is really interesting how the OLPC (One laptop per child) effort is yielding innovation that may also result in products appropriate for developed markets.

I think the other announcement from Via of a much more higher end nanobook, still at the $600 level, but capable of running XP or Vista Basic, is also interesting, delivering rich functionality in a sub 2 lb. footprint.

I guess I am looking for the next step function change in the portable computing market.  I am not sure where it will come from.  Efforts like the internet tablet from Nokia are certainly well intentioned R 1.0 thrusts, and will be worth tracking to see where they evolve.  I also see some of the interesting Vista inspired Sideshow gadgets, and somehow I hope that all the time and effort there inspires more than “intelligent remotes” only accessible within the home environment.

It is good to see the all the effort in the space,  and I do think we’ll see something in the next 12 months that strikes the right balance of functionality, form factor, and price to be more of a broad-based market success than we have seen to-date.