Ultrabook Developers Want Cheaper Chips, Placing Ultrabook Line At Risk

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Just three days ago, our own Kevin Schram filled you in on the $300 million fund that Intel had set up in a bid to help get Ultrabooks off the ground. But it seems that the reaction to said fund from Ultrabook developers is that it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

The current word says that the developers are pretty unified in that they want half-price chips from Intel to make the Ultrabook lineup fly. There are some deep concerns about profitability, and as such, they don’t want to get in on a product line unless it has a decent chance at profit. Intel, for its part, is only willing to offer up a 20 percent discount alongside the $300 million Ultrabook fund. Any farther down than that and it took would be risking a lack of profitability, at last report.

This is probably the worst sign yet for the entire Ultrabook process. If Intel and its developers can’t get on the same page vis-a-vis pricing, it’s going to likely destroy the concept before it can even get off the ground. And there have been plenty of detractors coming out around the Ultrabook lineup, too, wondering why Intel’s even bothering when there are already thin laptops (not quite as thin as Intel wants, but still) out there that have plenty of power and can be both made and sold at sub-thousand dollar pricing structures.

I’ve never been that concerned about the size and density of a laptop; it fits nicely into a simple laptop bag and I can carry the resulting package easily from car to coffee shop or around the house as desired. Maybe the Ultrabook is a case of trying to reinvent the wheel; we’ve already got perfectly good laptops…do we need super-slim ones?

What do you guys think about all this? Does Intel have the right idea slimming down the laptop to make it competitive with the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines? Or are they trying too hard to do something that’s already been pretty solidly done? We always like hearing from you guys about things like this, so head on down to the comments section and tell us what you think!