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Intel CEO Paul Otellini is continuing to push the PC processor company’s Ultrabooks vision to the press. The thin and light notebook design, which Intel first announced last May, became a reality earlier this month with Asus and Acer both launching their own Ultrabooks-based laptops. In a new video interview this week with the cable TV-based Fox Business Network, Otellini said that a new version of the Ultrabooks would be released in 2012, around the time of the launch of Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating system.

He said, “When Windows 8 comes out, you’ll see hybrid models that integrate the functions of a notebook and a tablet into a single device.” Windows 8′s Metro interface was designed with touch screen tablets and monitors in mind. Otellini didn’t go into detail about how this new Ultrabook design would work. However he seemed to confirm that the world’s two biggest PC makers, HP and Dell, would offer Ultrabooks at some point. He said, “Going into next year, you’ll see new designs come out from Dell and HP.”

Otellini also gave his opinion on HP possibly exiting the HP business and spinning off the division to form its own stand alone company. He said, “I hope that they decide to stay in the business.” He added, ” … to leave digital consumer electronics would, to me, be a very strange decision to make.” The final decision will be made by new HP CEO Meg Whitman by the end of October. Otellini will be meeting with Whitman later this week.

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Ultrabooks are ultralight PCs, like the MacBook Air, no more than 0.8″ thick, like the MacBook Air, with Intel processors, like the MacBook Air, metal cases for superior heat dissipation, like the MacBook Air, SSD storage, like the MacBook Air, long battery life and even longer standby time, like the MacBook Air, and affordable, like the MacBook Air. Oh, and they should boot in 7 seconds or less (which at a pinch, the MacBook Air can probably pull off, too). Is the MacBook Air actually an Ultrabook? Intel told us that that’s up to Apple—the MacBook Air is an Ultrabook in all but name.

Intel, keen to stimulate demand for PCs (rather than for ARM-powered tablets) is clearly so annoyed by the inability for PC OEMs to meet this specification that it recently announced the creation of a $300m “Ultrabook Fund” to invest in companies that are working to build this kind of hardware. That’s a damning indictment of the PC industry.

What Intel is asking for is readily attainable. We know that because Apple’s selling millions of Airs. And yet the world’s five biggest PC manufacturers—HP, Dell, Lenovo, Acer, and Asustek—have so far been unable to come up with something equivalent. And apparently they’re not close to managing it, either, because Intel thinks it must invest pots of cash to close the gap.

Read More: ArsTechnica

Intel intends to invest $300 million in a push for the development of thin and light laptops that can go for days on standby and still sell for under $1,000. The company refers to this class of computers as “ultrabooks,” laptops that would be positioned to compete with devices like the MacBook Air or the iPad.

Ideally, this research money would go toward developing computers that are under an inch thick, with robust batteries and very short startup times, Intel says. But the sub-$1,000 price point appears equally as important as the other factors, and it’s one that will be difficult to achieve in a device that must necessarily include a solid-state drive if it wants to achieve a quick startup time.

Intel isn’t the first to get behind the concept of an ultrabook: Asus showed its 2.4-pound “ultrabook” with a 13-inch screen, U100 SSD, and Core i7 CPU at Computex in May, and pegged the price as sub-$1,000. By the end of 2012, Intel is aiming to convert 40 percent of available laptop models to an ultrabook format, making “mobile computers into the next ‘must have’ device,” Intel Executive Vice President Arvind Sodhani told Bloomberg Businessweek, in evident hopes that the company will be able to pull consumers back from the burgeoning tablet market.

The $300 million fund will be spent over the next three or four years; for its part, Intel will keep creating processors that draw less battery power. But the ultrabook is not far from market; Intel says the first generation will hit shelves by this holiday shopping season.

Source: arstechnica