Elgan: While Windows sleeps

August 15, 2008 (Computerworld) Dell, Intel and their partners announced this week new technologies that represent major leaps forward for mobility. The companies seem to have discovered the secret to making such bold leaps: Cut Microsoft out of the deal.

One technology involves enabling users to gain instant access to a laptop's e-mail, browser and other basic functionality -- without booting Windows at all.

The second technology enables an Internet-based message to wake a Windows PC from sleep mode. It's useful both for voice-over-IP (VoIP) applications and for anyone away from their PC who wants remote access.

These new technologies are perfect metaphors for what's happening in the industry. In both cases, Windows is asleep while Microsoft's own partners give users what they really want.

Let's have a look at the new technologies.

Dell Latitude On

Dell announced this week a new feature called Latitude On that enables the use of e-mail, Web surfing, basic personal information manager functionality and document reading -- all without booting Windows. The idea is to enable basic use without having to wait for the main operating system to boot and to extend battery life.

A more accurate name than "Latitude On" would have been "Windows Off."

The code name was "BlackTop," a combination of "BlackBerry" and "laptop." The original aim of the project was to give users the same basic functionality of a BlackBerry using their laptops' full-size keyboard and screen.

What Dell is really doing here is building the equivalent of a secondary Asus Eee PC into a full-featured, full-size laptop. The Latitude On feature uses a low-power Intel Atom processor, flash storage and Linux (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10) separate from the laptop's main CPU, hard drive and Windows operating system. But unlike a subnotebook, the Latitude On system won't allow you to install applications. It's essentially a "cloud computing" device that depends on the Internet for much of its functionality.

As far as I can tell, none of the applications are made by Microsoft. On's custom Web browser is based on Firefox. E-mail, "diary" and contacts are, of course, non-Microsoft applications. But some Microsoft data types are supported in one way or another. For example, the system includes viewers for Microsoft Office documents as well as for Adobe PDF documents. The built-in organizer grabs the 100 most recent Outlook e-mail messages from the laptop's cache and displays them.

If you use only Latitude On, battery life lasts not hours but days, according to Dell.

The system is expected to hit in two months for just some of Dell's laptops.

From a Microsoft perspective, Latitude On represents a debacle comparable to the ultramobile PC (UMPC) disaster. Microsoft led a big push to drive sales of Vista-based UMPCs, all of which failed catastrophically in the market, rejected by users in favor of Linux-based, then XP-based subnotebooks.