Intel has been pretty vocal about its plans to shake up the laptop market with its thin-and-light Ultrabooks. Don't look now, but the chip giant is also quietly promoting all-in-one PC designs that could have a similar impact on the traditional desktop space.
Intel launched its next-generation, 22-nanometer Ivy Bridge processors in San Francisco on Monday, introducing 13 new quad-core Core i5 and Core i7 chips for desktops, notebooks, and all-in-one systems that boast twice the graphics processing power as the previous generation of Intel processors.
Kirk Skaugen, general manager of Intel's PC Client Group, said Ivy Bridge will be the company's fastest ramping product line ever. Intel's partners are already prepping more than 570 new system designs around the next-gen processor platform, including upwards of 270 new desktops and all-in-ones.
"We're very excited about the very, very thin all-in-one designs [using Ivy Bridge chips]," Skaugen said. At Monday's event, Intel showcased several such products from Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, and other OEMs in a gallery of Ivy Bridge-based systems at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco.
Pat Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, thinks all-in-one PCs are poised to take a bigger chunk out of the overall desktop market in the coming months.
"I do believe we will see a significant step up in the sale of all-in-ones as a percentage of desktops," he said. "Every year for last ten years, people have talked about the death of the desktop. But end users are so different in what they want. In mature markets like the U.S. and Western Europe, all-in-ones are getting really popular because they're simpler for people who aren't all that tech savvy."
Moorhead sketched out use cases where individuals who own tablets like Apple's iPad could opt for an all-in-one for the home, using it as a "central hub" in the kitchen or other community room.
"People who want the best in convenient mobility get a tablet," the analyst said. "But what they appreciate still is the ability to sit at a a big desktop with a big display. They could buy a standard desktop, but an all-in-one is cleaner, it looks better in the kitchen, etc."
Skaugen mentioned one mature PC market where all-in-ones are really taking off—Japan. The Intel executive said Japanese homes frequently have several all-in-one PCs scattered throughout the house, often with television capabilities.
For more see Intel Releases Ivy Bridge: First Processor with 'Tri-Gate' Transistor, Intel's Ivy Bridge: 10 Things You Need to Know, Acer Goes Ivy Bridge, as well as the slide show below.
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