Look at all the graphics goodies - 17″ Hi-resolution, high gamut WUXA screen, NVidia 3700 with 1GB of memory, Intel Quad Core processor, Bluray DVI-link with 8GB of memory, two 200GB 7200RPM RAID capable disk drives, built-in color calibration unit and 6x4″ Wacom Digitizing tablet among others. Now admittedly many of these features are computer-game inspired - but not the disk drives, color calibration and digitizing tablet. These are pure graphic designer features. Graphics demand much from PC’s and the suppliers are responding.

But the unit weighs a ton - 3.3kg weight; and costs a ton - $3300. And both are just starting values as this unit has close to a dozen optional features. However, even given these optional features , I would like to raise three serious game changing problems.

First, the disk drives are undersized and not maximum speed. Flash-based memory or SSD-Solid State Disk drives offer just as much disk space, and soon, even more at much faster speeds. Second, the Wacom digitizing tablet should be a Wacom digitizing screen like the Cintiq so that graphic artists can do touch screen operations directly on the images or deigns they are working with. Third, the operating system is Vista - the weakest link in this package. Not just that Vista’s Media Center PC is tinkertoy media software but Vista itself stands in the way of making this a great machine. Working with the myriad specialized hardware and software in thegraphics field will prove very tasking because of “it doesn’t run in Vista”. Also Vista eats up huge chunks of valuable 32bit memory. Sure users can go to 64bit Vista - but then even more software and hardware falls by the wayside.

Now Microsoft will argue that WPF is the graphics software frmaework of the future. But knowing people in the graphics world will counter that ZUL, OpenGL, Gecko, Flash and other libraries are the already existing and substantially Open Source options that are slowly but surely gaining credence and usage against the everything runs in Windows receding tide.

But perhaps the biggest drawback to Vista as the graphics OS of choice is that there is still no full screen point-and-shoot nor any multi-touch features which the iPhone and Microsoft Surfaces have proved to be very powerful features. I can testify to the substantial productivity boosts possible not just for graphics design but all PC operations when using full touch screen alone. Then add multi-touch and gestures based operations and their will be another “anomalous” economic productivity boost (GVA and other labor effiency measures will increase) in 2-3 years time when screen-based fingertip operations become the norm on PC’s.

So the Lenovo is good news in that it starts to cater to a market that is driving PC capabilities, performance and features. But consider it a harbinger of both the graphics/media dominance of computing software and the impact of gestures and finger pointing I/O. Question - how much longer will voice operations have to wait in the wings ? I suspect a lot longer because the technology of voice recognition (I have a cold right now and so I don’t sound like myself at all) is so challenging; but even more so would be the clamor of voices talking to their machines in the offices of the world. So watch this emergence of fullscreen fingertip control to be one of the determining factors in PC sales.

Apple has flunked the test

I have already raised the white flag for Cupertino and showed that presented with unparalleled opportunity, Apple can and has effectively doubled downward literally - gone from double the price of a Windows PC to 4 times. Don’t know how long Apple stock can maintain those ridiculous price earnings ratios -but I would be checking my Apple stock for shortness of breadth.

Linux has damned itself

I am as contemptuous of Linux gurus as they are of allowing money to be made “with their operating system”. Nobody dares to use the OS or enter the market for the same reason they don’t dare enter the Windows marketplace - if a software vendor should make any money some Open Sourcer will do the 80-20 kiss of death - duplicate 80% of the features, charge nothing , and kill the market opportunity. Sounds almost Redmondian ruthless. And if that doesn’t work, the gurus can mount a blogospheric attack of unrelenting shortsightedness about software being purely profitless. Don’t look for lasting innovation here.

VMWare has dawdled

Hey Paul, you don’t have have to give it away for free … you let the OEMs in on the action and they will be wanting to sell the $20 version of VMWare that allows users to flit between Windows, Linux and MacOS. You guys already know how to package it with all sorts of 3rd party software and gaming bundles. But for the time being, VMware fiddles while Xen source is in the hands of IBM OSers - fat chance of anything creative from there.

Minibooks languish

Redmond and greed killed the minibook market. I laughed when I saw the price and features of the HP Minibook at $700. My gosh what advantage did that have over $700 notebooks except tinkertoy specs. And of course Redmond killed off Windows XP. And then - Mirabilis Mirabile - introduced a “new version” of XP specifically for the Minibook marketplace alone and promptly prices were raised by 30-40% for this XP version. Hey Paul of VMware - is there an opportunity here ??

Implications

You know when a market is reaching well beyond “maturity”, when presented with an huge silver platter that is Disgusting Vista - and yet everybody who is anybody in the IT market finds away to fumble away the opportunity. Maybe its just symptomatic of sclerosis that is afflicting the American Capital markets.

According to Steve Jobs he switched Apple to Intel processors to get the cheapest chips, motherboards and other core PC hardware that would allow Apple to compete with Windows PCs head on. Instead Apple has drifted into being not double but now effectively quadruple the price of the equivalent Windows PC. I know that MacOS is good … but not that good.

And here is Microsoft giving Apple a Silver Platter opportunity. And the marketing honchos at Apple at least get that with their devestatingly funny ads about MacOS versus Vista. Right on - Vista is such a bloated pig with response time so variable and operations requiring a reboot or whatever.

And this is not the only opportunity Redmond has sent Cupertino’s way. The Microsoft Marketing dopes first said Wow about Vista and then proclaimed that Vista, Office 2007, IE and the coterie of other Microsoft apps and software (including development tools) were People Ready. Yeah…. BZZZZZZZZZZZZT!!!! OOOGAH OOOOGAH OOOGAH DIVE DIVE DIVE AWAY FROM ANOTHER RANDIOSELY FALSE PREMISE AND PROMISE. In fact Ballmer and company could be justly sued by stockholders and employee option holders for concertedly ruining the Microsoft brand and delivering 8 long years of sideways movement of the stock price.

So given this silver platter what is Apple doing ??? I think the word is ….. squandering….