ForbesOnTech

It's Time for a Revolution in Notebook Cursor Control Devices--Blindfold and Put the Trackpads Up Against the Wall.

Notebook trackpad cursor controllers may be the single biggest design problems effecting consumer notebook designs. The most important element of the portable computer notebook design is the user experience. And that boils down to how easily someone can unpack their machine, set down in front of a keyboard and productively work. Unfortunately, the performance of most track pads is so erratic that users have to learn how to position their hands and palm on each notebook they use. Most portable computer manufacturers have little control over trackpad design. Track pads are commodity parts most often purchased from the lowest bidding supplier and the resulting user experience suffers from this practice. I believe that the user experience is the single most important element in a successful notebook and I have yet to unpack and test a notebook that didn’t require spending time to adjust a track pad’s sensitivity or other attributes. It shouldn’t be this difficult and I shouldn’t need to carry a mouse-pointer in my notebook bag in order to really be productive with a notebook. My experience with notebooks that use track stick pointers or which have built in mechanical mice is altogether different. I u npack them, turn them, on and work for hours on end, a happy camper. For years, the reason why I recommended business notebook brands such as Toshiba’s Tecras and IBM ( and more recently Lenovo) ThinkPads and handful of others was because they used track stick pointers for cursor control. But my all time favorite notebook—Hewlett Packard’s original Omnibook 300 through 800 line didn’t use a stick pointer at all; it had a small mechanical mouse built into its side. HP’s mechanical mouse was a thing of beauty. It was built like a tank, lived safe from accidental damage in its little mouse house on the side of the Omnibook. But more importantly, in the four years I carried HP Omnibooks, not one ever failed. Not once! My love affair with touch screens has a lot to do with cursor control. If I want the cursor to do something specific, I just use a stylus to place it where its needed and perform a specific operation. Track pads may let me pinch, squat, squeeze and grunt but the result of inadvertently hitting a track pad creates an execrable experience that gets in the way of the user experience. The solution to the problems with track pads won’t come from the lowest bidders of 500,00-part track pad orders, or their software partners. It has to come from notebook designers who have a vested interested in making their products different by optimizing the user experience. Until this happens users will keep accidentally sending their cursors to screen realestate that’s unimagined.—Jim Forbes, 11/25/2009

Sony Sees New Use for Netbooks--- Internet Devices that Control the Home

Some of the most interesting executives in today’s personal computer market are the small group of senior marketing managers charged with managing netbook campaigns.  Constrained by budgets that reflect netbook bargain basement pricing, many netbook marketing managers are working hard to differentiate their products amid a pool of similar bargain basement technological offerings.

One of the companies I watch closely is Sony Electronics, which like Lenovo, HP and others doesn’t rush into a market merely to claim territory but, makes an entrance when it thinks a design or feature set will set its products apart from the crowd of other companies touting basic technologies.

While its offices may be in west Los Angeles and San Diego , Sony and its portable computing systems are at their heart very much Japanese.  And it’s that take on netbooks that could give it an edge in the coming months as virtually every other netbook maker readies new systems based on Microsoft’s Windows 7 or other operating systems.

Sony’s Xavier Lauwaert, a senior marketing manager for the company’s W portable product line is the manager  tasked with launching and marketing netbooks. Mr. Lauwaert notes “the market is confused about the differences between ultra compact notebooks and netbooks.”

“In our eyes netbooks are a complimentary, device for individuals who wander (from room to room). Netbooks are personal devices, not shared computers,” Mr. Lauwaert says

When asked about next generation Sony netbooks, the marketing manager is careful not to give away the store before the company launches its another new product (which will be its second in this category this year). “We haven’t done true justice to the market yet and I wonder ‘do we need to rethink the discussion of the importance of cell-based voice phones versus (cellular) data?

“When I think of how to describe where netbooks are going, I think of a (cell) phone on steroids.”

“But we think netbooks are mobile Internet devices and home Internet devices.”

“If there’s one market where people are ready to accept one device that controls your entire home, it’s a home netbook (that goes with an individual user from room to room).Think of the concept of a home internet device that controls everything in your home.” Mr. Lauwaert says.

Sony’s senior manager also belongs to a small group of forward thinking marketing managers challenging some of the perceptions that have been at the core of personal computing for decades. “What consumers and executives have to realize is that stripping a CPU of features that have been accepted as standard for years is a less than optimal solution. This means that some users may have to get use to sacrificing some features to gain new functionality: for example many customers will need a data modem, but not an internal optical drive.”

And what about the real life cost of persistent connectivity— one of the ongoing bullet points in netbooks resold by cell carriers in conjunction with multi-year cellular data contracts? “That $99 netbook ends up costing its owners as much as $2,000 (the cost of some cellular data plans over a 24-month period) at the end of two years. We think Pay-as- you Go cellular data access will be attractive to many users.” Mr. Lauwaert notes.

Sony is also counting on future interface technologies from Microsoft to help position and introduce its dream of the netbook as a home controller used by an individual to takes it from room to room, the product manager hinted.—Jim Forbes 08/17/2009.

Rethinking Bundling-- Cloud-Based Bundles Could Drive Netbook Success!

Dominance in the emerging netbook category could be subject to an old, overlooked play by manufacturers:software bundling. Bundling is as old as the computer market but an adverse reaction to so-called shovel-ware has cast a pall over the practice. Despite this, well thought out bundles designed for persistently connected netbooks could be a determining factor in the long term success or failure of this category.

Let’s look at where netbooks are today. Superficially, most of the news driving netbook coverage has been entirely too predictable and based on the mundane: manufacturers releasing machines with the latest processor and core logic; incremental enhancements such as larger keyboards and screens, the addition of discrete graphics, or support of WAN cellular modems and deals with national cell networks.

What’s been overlooked; however, is usability and suitability, areas where netbooks designed around one or more cloud-based software suites can assume leadership positions.

Today, netbooks are not pitched at corporate IT except to the extent that corporate IT has deployed individual test systems or in limited evaluations of web based applications. The market netbook manufacturers miss right now are medium sized organizations using Software as application-based solutions (SAAS) such as those provided by entities like SalesForce.com. And there’s a lot of light space in Sales Force.com’s cloud, because it’s never tried to be an office automation software supplier.

This is where Google or (a mightily revamped Microsoft) can shine through. Both have stakes in office automation software. And Google’s cloud-based word processing, spreadsheet and presentation graphics have been evaluated by most major corporations (which represents the figurative pot of gold at the end of the cloud-based SAAS and netbook rainbows).

Google may be the most obvious supplier of such a suite, but even that company has patchy holes in its cloud cover when it comes to software as an application. While Google has a strong SAAS suite, there’s enough wiggle room in its strategy for other companies to squeeze in and grab Google while profiting from the net book phenomena. Specifically the opportunity for Google is sales automation software that includes rugged contact management with rock solid synchronization.

Another part of the equation belongs to the cell networks. By definition, persistent connectivity is the backbone of mobile workforces equipped with netbooks. Any hardware maker that wants to succeed in netbooks will need a cell network partner. And it’s those partners who can assemble the alliances needed for an effective cloud-based strategy to large, medium-sized or other businesses.—Jim Forbes 09/13/2009

An open Letter to Palm's Roger McNamee, Ed Colligan and David Nagle-- It's Time to Get Back to Fundamentals

Subject: An Open Letter to Palm Inc’s Roger McNamee, Ed Colligan and David Nagle.

Dear Roger, Ed and David;

You’re dangerously close to losing me forever as a user of Palm smart phone products.

I openly confess to having paid a premium to use your products, but guess what? You’re not Apple, but in my world, you’re very close to being grouped in that same category, but for much different reasons.

I’ve bought four Palm smartphones over the last several years and even willingly moved to Centro when that appeared the direction you were headed.

OK, I admit it: for those of us who have big hands the Centro isn’t a good fit.

But you know what? You really should have user tested this with people such as myself. But that’s not what burns my butt with your products today.

Your quality control appears to be slipping, which is why I just bought a used Samsung phone from a Craigslist ad.

Here’s why we’re headed for a divorce:

1. The digitizer/screen on every Palm Smart Phone I’ve owned for the last five years has died prematurely. Guys, this is just not acceptable and you damn well know it.
2. Also I believe you need to immediately evaluate the audio pickup circuitry and device you use in your smartphones. They urgently need to be improved. Just about everyone I call from my Palm smartphone complains about the audio quality. For a long time, I thought my friends were just  sniveling pukes. But, I had a trusted buddy call me using my phone, making sure he spoke in a normal voice. Guess what? His conversation was hard to understand. I suspect it’s a problem of clipping caused by over modulation and I know I’m not the only one who has experienced this.
3. Dealing with your tech support call center is an exercise in futility. Please take note of HP and Lenovo. They have tech support down to a friendly science. I have yet to call their tech support lines and not have an issue successfully resolved. With your tech support I get the same damn rigidly scripted response, and hang up feeling like I accomplished nothing.
4. Twice in as many weeks I’ve received an incoming call and have been unable to answer it because your software is stuck on “synch.” My calls are more important than your software housekeeping routines.
5. The perception is that Palm has all its wood behind the Palm Pre arrow. Yet anyone who follows Palm closely suspects (or intuitively knows) that a consumer version of the Pre will be forthcoming this year.
6. I was a fiercely loyal Palm user and customer for almost two decades. It appears, however that you’re doggedly working to sever this bond.

There was a time when Palm did extensive usability testing and took note of failure rates and problems. In the rush to post numbers, this appears to have changed. It’s sad.

I really hope that Palm doesn’t join Osborne, Grid and a host of other Silicon Valley pioneers on the long list of historical footnotes. There’s just too much at stake for Palm to lose sight of core principles like reliability, and ease of use.

Now go ahead and show me that Palm is still capable of hardware and software innovation and has not deliberately decided to be simply be another producer of Apple-like products. I once recommended your products but my recent experience has changed my view.—Jim Forbes 05/22/2009.

Disclosure: In the last century I served on Palm’s advisory council. I also was an unpaid memory of IBM’s mobile Advisory Council. I am an independent reviewer but prior to retirement had been a Senior Editor with PCWeek, InfoWorld and Windows Magazine. I was also  producer of Demo events and focused on mobile and emerging technologies.

Strategic Criteria For Netbook Wins---Robust 802, Good Batttery Life, and Performance Count

Having lived with a netbook for almost two months and watched their gradual evolution for much longer, I’ve formed some strong impressions about this category of minimalist portables.

Foremost: Netbooks are not be-all, end-all, solutions to portable computing. Anyone who that tries to judge these new machines by past portable standards is probably headed for a big disappointment.

If you’re able to look at netbooks, however, as ultra portables that help you execute one or more critical tasks, you’ll appreciate their light weight as much as their ability to get you through a work day.

There are at least three significant criteria for most netbooks: Battery life, usability and a stellar 802.11 implementation are all critical to a good netbook design. First off, it’s hard for me to believe that a netbook with a battery life of less than six hours is anything more than a badly rushed first attempt in a new category.

One of the glaring shortfalls in many current netbooks is their 802.11 implementation. If you’ve ever used a netbook to try and read email in a crowded environment while 300-500 other people are sucking the life-forces from an 802.11 network, you’ll quickly come to understand that a well thought out, brawny, 802.11 transceiver could be a make or break technology for netbooks. Many of the netbooks I’ve looked at in retail (or which I’ve seen in use at conferences or in campus settings) seem to have difficulty connecting and staying attached to 802.11 networks whose access points are less than 70 feet away.

Performance will become a gating factor in future netbooks, and could become the wedge that separates Intel’s dominance in portable computing in future designs. While Intel’s Atom processor sits in the processor socket of most netbooks, the emerging demand for increased horsepower in netbooks could result in partial wins for AMD’s new Zeos or Qualcomm’s SnapDragon families (while Intel and AMD are focusing on traditional speeds and feeds, Qualcomm appears to focusing on chips designed for the holy grail of portable computing-- instant-on and persistent wireless connectivity).

Processor performance, however, is just one of the factors shaping how users will perceive future netbooks.  Disk and bus speeds also contribute to the equation.

The Acer netbook I carry everyday, --an Acer OneNote D150-- has a moderately fast 160GB hard disk drive that meets all of my needs, and is fast enough to meet most needs and has the capacity to let me keep important data locally.

To improve baseline performance and its impact on the overall netbook user experience, hardware makers may need to adopt an –in-their face attitude with operating system developers to provide  products that load quickly, run efficiently but, most of all, are not loaded with unneeded features. But one feature that netbooks desperately need is “instant-on” (introduced and on Hewlett Packard’s Omnibook 300, which was introduced in 1992 and also supported in the subsequent 500, and 800 models of that pioneering ultra portable notebook line).

One of the giant paradoxes of netbooks is meeting users’ demands without busting this form factor’s seams.

Battery life in current netbooks is a good example. Although Users want six hours or more of battery life, appropriate power packs add weight and increased depth and back end height, interfering with design aesthetics.

The evolution of netbook computers promises to be one of the most interesting tales coming down the technology toll road now. Some of the first generation netbooks I’ve seen are among the most rugged portables ever built. Other machines now in the development phase promise to expand the category exponentially, not only meeting existing requirements with room to spare, but also resetting the bar by adding designed in cell network connectivity (I’m pretty sure cell network co branding is imminent ) and full support of touch screen interfaces.—Jim Forbes/04/30/20098

Why New Non-Intel Processors Are"Game Changing" Technologies-- From Craig Merrigans Blog "Offerings"

I try to follow blogs written by current anf former portable computer executives. Most provide solid insight into what portable computer management is thinking and many make me think.

This is particularly true of a blog written by veteran IBM and more recently, Lenovo,brand and marketing exec, Craig Merrigan. A recent post in Mr.Merrigan’s blog “Offerings” here  spotlights the rising significance of netbooks.

His second point in the post –that alternatives to Intel’s Atom processors – are "game changers" hits home.

In the same post he also touches on something else I believe is critically important in netbooks: any operating system (such as Linux) or user interface that requires user intervention to accomplish attaching to a printer or connecting to WiFi networks is simply dead on arrival in a consumer-oriented netbook market.

If you’re not already reading Craig Merrigan you should be. His posts demonstrate a professional understanding of brand management that’s absent in most blogs from technology companies.

I give it two giant thumbs up—Jim Forbes /04/23/2009.

Netbooks Should be Designed for an Olptimal User Experience-- Consider "Heft"

Today’s netbooks compete mostly on price and early market positions; a far cry from the mainstream portable market which is driven by innovation and feature rich base configurations. Use any one of today’s netbooks and you either quickly run into (or learn to work around) the limits of stripped-down- to-basics portable computing.

I’ve been on a netbook now since early March and I can clearly see how useful they can be once you learn to adapt to the form factor and work around their limitations. A couple of points: manufacturers need to pay close attention to the capabilities and location of 802.11 radio antennas in netbooks.

At Demo 2009 a couple of weeks ago, I had to pay attention to where I sat in relation to 802.11 access points.  I blogged the show using Google’s web based Docs and Spreadsheets and was fearful 500 or so other notebook users on the same network wouldn‘t leave me enough bandwidth to stay connected to GOOG’s office productivity apps. Turns out my fears were misplaced and I stayed connected to the Google mother ship the entire time I was at the show. Netbook supplier Acer gets high marks in my book for having paid close attention to 802.11 connectivity in the design of its handy little 10.1-inch screen netbook.

But that’s just one of the things that are important to the netbook user experience.

Battery life is another and after a full day’s use at Demo my Acer netbook still had enough power left in its batteries for me to compose and post an entry on my blog. As far as I’m concerned any netbook that doesn’t have a battery life of at least seven and a half hours is not just a non-starter, it’s a waste of money.

In the race to get netbook products to market some manufacturers have overlooked another key element in the netbook user experience; the heft and feel of a machine in users’ hands. Protruding batteries may guarantee long battery life,  but they also effect a netbooks center of balance as it’s being carried from one location to another. “Heft” may seem like nit picking, but it’s not.

Go back in time to one of the best designed subcompacts, my much beloved HP Omnibook 800, and take a close look at that machine’s look and feel as well as how it felt in your hands. It was an amazingly balanced, and was designed to be carried instinctively from one location to another. The overall design of HP’s Omnibooks set a standard for “heft” and user comfort I still use in judging other computer makers’ portables.

Hey HP, here’s an idea, resurrect your Omnibook 800 and redesign it as a netbook!

At Demo, I saw another netbook technology that reinforces my oft stated belief that new netbooks arriving late this year could stand the industry on its head. What I saw was the Presto operating system – which supports instant-on and persistent cellular data network connectivity for connected netbooks—is from a Canadian Qualcomm partner called Xandros www.xandros.com.

When it comes to netbooks the latter half of 2009 could be the year when true market competition drives products development in an important direction – highly productive user experiences where ultra portable devices that are carried unobtrusively are ready for meetings and business as soon as they’re turned on.—Jim Forbes 03/12/2009.

         

 

 

Attention Netbook Manufacturers,Your Products Need to be Marketed and Differentiated!

Over the last two weeks I’ve looked at a lot of netbooks, but left stores and websites with unanswered questions, not products.

I have yet to have a manufacturer or salesman satisfactorily answer what fundamentally is the most important question gating netbook acceptance: “Why do I need to give up an optical drive or valuable screen real estate that’s easy on my aging eyes, and retreat to 10-year old hard disks technology?” And most of all, why do I want a netbook with a short battery life?

At the center of the problem is a simple fact: portable computer manufacturers have become too lazy and relied too long on feature matrix (aka “spec box”) marketing. The result has been that many product managers have developed a style of marketing that’s more suited for Dickensonian IT purchasing agents than 21^st Century technologists.

To break free of the current marketing rut before it leads product lines and perhaps even entire companies into oblivion, marketing managers need to actively sell netbooks as new technology, and not just  “me too” renditions aimed at brand or processor family loyalists. How bad is netbooks marketing? I looked at the six netbooks recently and not one was accompanied by any “call to action” Material or campaigns.

A handful of salespeople showing products understood netbooks worked best when paired with persistent wireless, but none offered a bundle that included such connectivity or even personal recommendations.

Without persistent connectivity as well as reliable, cloud-based apps –which includes secure drive-in-the-sky storage and synchronization software that’s good enough to earn “industry standard” spurs--netbooks may just be a slight bump up from cell-phone, WAP browser- based solutions of  the last century.

But wait there’s more: After early adopters make their purchases it’s going to take a lot more than traditional speeds and feeds product launches tied to Intel processor or new core logic to gain lasting ownership positions in the netbook market.

Unfortunately some of the current netbook leaders mistakenly equate market availability presence with dominance. For example one of the top two net book suppliers positioned a new machine largely around the fact that it used “the most recent” (and speediest) Intel processor.

The above illustrates one of the biggest continuing flaws in portable computing marketing; over reliance on Intel co marketing programs and close ties to launches of new (poorly differentiated) hardware tied to microprocessor manufacturers’ products.

Sadly, that may be the only marketing model many of today’s portable computer makers may know. But, the seeds of their downfall and that of their products as well as companies could well be tied to such actions.

But I don’t really believe its all doom and gloom for netbook and portable computer makers. A handful have come alive over the last 18 months and are beginning to break out speeds an feeds as well as feature matrix marketing models and beginning to use call to action marketing to draw customers and the attention of markets to new innovative products.  Apple, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo have all made heavy investments outside of staid portable computer marketing channels.

And, the current economy has created remarkable opportunities for companies outside of Silicon Valley; notably cellular chipset giant Qualcomm here in San Diego, which in addition to having a netbook architecture that has built-in feature like support for instant-on and persistent connectivity, also has the wherewithal to pair netbook manufacturers with cellular networks.

Netbook makers should not assume that the advantages of a new architecture that’s designed expressly for persistently connected netbooks will be clearly understood by business and general consumers. Actively marketing such new technologies and offering the market clear call to actions will mark the difference between winners and the also-rans in the 2009 netbook race.—Jim Forbes  02/09/2009

Netbooks, PC Makers' Life Vest in a Tumultuous Economy-- Thoughts About a new Portable Class

 

      The emerging race and development of netbooks may be one of the most significant events in the portable computing market in the last 10 years.

      Netbooks—scaled down portables designed almost exclusively for on-the fly email and minimal computing tasks—have caught the attention of users and manufacturers alike.

      They also pose a challenge to an industry that’s been forced to market products with razor’s edge profits while at the same time providing users with enough competitive features to keep brands not just alive, but flourishing.

      Because most netbooks are relatively inexpensive (less than $500) they are expected to be an important part of the 9 percent growth in mobile computing, according to a analyst firm IDC, which made the prediction in a report it issued last month.

      IDC noted that price is a paramount reason for the hockey stick growth of netbooks. The IT market analyst firm predicts 3.5 million such machines will ship this year and 9.2 million by 2012.

(disclosure: at two times in my career I worked for entities—InfoWorld and Demo—that were owned by the same company that owns IDC—jmf)

      Other IT analyst firms say the growth of netbooks will be much more dramatic.

      Portable computer designers note that most companies will be quick to market with multiple netbook products, some of which will likely be focused on specific market segments (field sales, field repair technicians and public safety are three markets often singled out by designers) and include features not found in entry-level products.  High on that list will be netbooks with integrated 802.11 and WAN wireless capabilities.

      Many of today’s portable makers look enviously at netbooks like the Asus Eee PC, which has captured and retains early netbook market share. But netbook products aren’t likely to come only from notebook manufacturers and two other companies to watch in this space could be Palm Inc. and at least one highly successful online retailer.

 

      Palm Inc., which introduced a companion device ( i.e. a netbook by another name) earlier this year but in early September cancelled that product in it’s initial configuration so that the company could focus on its mainstream smart phone business, said Palm’s CEO Ed Colligan in a blog entry on Palm.com in early September.

Colligan wrote: “Jeff Hawkins and I still believe that the market category defined by Foleo has enormous potential. When we do Foleo II it will be based on our new platform, and we think it will deliver on the promise of this new category. We're not going to speculate now on timing for a next Foleo, we just know we need to get our core platform and smartphones done first.”

Sources close to Palm hint that Foleo II could be announced at or shortly after the next Palm Developer’s conference, where the company is expected to unveil the next version of it Palm operating system, as well as other new products.

Amazon is another company that could take an existing product, the Kindle, and adapt it for the netbook market. Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader already supports WAN wireless networking and is based on a form factor that could be easily used as an email device—the heart and soul of netbooks.

As the current economy is reefed tighter, netbooks may be one of the emerging hardware categories that give IT departments and mobile computing manufacturers room to grow and breathe—Jim Forbes, 10/08/2008.

 

Mobile Computer Designers-- the Force Behind Winning Portables

      There’s a new critical management member for notebook manufacturers whose unsung but highly visible efforts make or break new products.

      The newest strategic manager moving into mahogany row is someone whose work space is apt top be as eclectic as it is productive. They inhabit the only executive offices where you’re as likely to find a stark collection of great, but damn near equally obscure, writing implements and sharp edged tools for shaping and detailing the materials used to model new computer models.

     

Ind

us

trial design, an academic discipline combining advanced consumer marketing and research concepts with fields such as art, design and mechanical or other engineering categories has moved out of boutique third-party shops and into mainstream portable computing executive management.

      These new class of managers are “design chiefs” and more recently “vice president of design.” They are charged with turning user and marketing or engineering concepts into products that not only resonate across several markets, but which also have the wherewithal needed for profits and long product lives.

      Product design has become a vitally important part of portable computing that can make or break individual brands. In fact, according to officials of some portable makers, it’s so important that some companies with operations in the

US

and in

Asia

now work on designs for portable computers 24 hours a day. As a team in the

US

ends its workday, its day’s efforts are turned over to members of the same team on the other side of the world.

      Because of the changing nature of portable computing designers need to stay well in front of the trend line, suggests Hewlett Packard portable designer Stacy Wolfe, who works in Houston.

      HP’s Mr. Wolf’s career in the portable business began in 1995 and his first major design product was the HP TC100, a convertible notebook that gained a large following among students and academic professionals.

      Today, Stacy Wolf is in charge of consumer and business notebook designs.

Managing notebooks designs for the consumer market is a fast-paced assignment, Mr Wolfe noted.

      “Most of the time we will take in four to five months of research that begins in specific regions. (Designers) need to know what’s important for regions and the worldwide market.”

      Mr. Wolfe noted that the consumer notebook segment is growing rapidly but “steadily changing. The hunger for consumer electronics is amazing.”

      Overall, he says “the smaller your devices get, the closer you become tied to the market.”

      The Golden Rule in design remains “Weight to design,” declares HP’s Wolf.

      Like a many notebook makers HP has a large installed base in academic/student computing. “It’s a two-part market: one group of students wants a desktop experience; another part wants a true notebook experience. Going forward, how do you design one notebook that’s really several products for the entire audience?”

      Stacy Wolf is one of several designers now on staff with portable computer makers.  The most well known may be David Hill, a senior vice president of Lenovo who started his career with IBM’s ThinkPad group and is responsible for the very first ThinkPad design, which he’s often reported as saying, was influenced by a Japanese wooden Bento meal box. Since then Mr. Hill’s influence has been impressed on virtually every member of the ThinkPad line, including the ThinkPad 701 Butterfly (an ultraportable that used a folding keyboard to reduce its overall foot print.)

      Hill is generally regarded as a pioneering portable computer designer. His work has been showcased in several museums and by numerous design associations and publications.

      Several co-founders of mobile computer companies have also left their imprint on the designs and interfaces of various machines. Apple’s Steve jobs has a well deserved reputation for putting designs that bind the user to the computer ahead of build costs.

      Palm Computing co-founder Jeff Hawkins also is worth noting. Over a period lasting several years, Hawkins whittled, shaved, and sanded wooden models of the device that eventually become the first Palm Pilot, enhancing those models with glossy photos of his applications pasted into the screen’s location. In his 20 year career Hawkins has designed several systems, earning praises from Industrial Designer Associations for his efforts.

      In the coming weeks I will post several other entries on portable computing design, so stay tuned. Same bat channel, same bat time –Jim Forbes on 10/03/2008.