Live from the Intel / Sprint / Asus XOHM WiMax press event
2.01PM – Chairman of ASUS, Jonney Shih takes the stage. Invites us to join a new world of mobile internet. As usual, going through the company's accomplishments and sales figures; takeaway: ASUS is pretty happy with its international standing. They plan to be one of the top 5 notebook manufacturers in 3 years, and the top three by 2013.
Keep reading after the break for the rest of the action.
2:09PM – ASUS claims to have won 2508 distinguished awards in 2007, although we didn't see any Engadget Awards on their slide. New slide: surprise, surprise, the internet is a "great driver of growth." Ah, here comes the Web 2.0 buzzwords — got em all here, YouTube, Facebook, Picasa, you know the deal.
2:12PM – Now we're going throught the history of internet connectivity, leading up to 802.16, or WiMax. Nothing new here: WiMax is fast, long-range, and basically pretty great.
2.15PM – Ah, the good stuff — EeePC. Claims to be the company's most successful product ever. Obviously, then, a WiMax-enabled EeePC is going to be a big deal for ASUS.
2:19PM – Hey! They're doing a demo of Facebook video on the Eee over WiMax, and guess who the star is? Our old buddy Kevin Tofel from JK on the Run!
2:20PM – Jonny takes off, Sean Maloney of Intel steps up. His title is a little too long to repeat here. Lots of back-patting going on, clearly Intel has love for ASUS.
2:23PM – Sean is going through some of the philosophy behind the development of WiMax, which basically boils down to unhappiness with current 3G networks.
2:25PM – Another demo, Call of Duty 4 on an ASUS Lamborghini notebook, over WiMax. Ha, it's live, and people are cussing onscreen. Gameplay looks smooth, though, should have the low latency that gamers crave.
2:27PM – Now we have Atish Gude, Sprint VP for mobile broadband operations. First thing: this is the year WiMax finally becomes a reality. Let's hope so! Compares WiMax with other tech like HD and WiFi in terms of adoption rates and timing — relatively, WiMax is being commercialized faster than most. Hardware manufacturers have the products ready, just waiting on networks — growing the ecosystem.
2:32PM – More love for ASUS, now from Sprint. Clearly, ASUS footed the bill for this conference room.
2:34PM – Sprint, obviously, is excited about XOHM. Promises more announcements to come, but not from him. Wow, this looks like it's gonna be a quick one. Jonny gets back on stage, gives props to Sprint, following his earlier props for Sean Maloney. Now we're back to actual info, talking about triple-play internet.
2:37PM – Finally, ASUS makes its WiMax commitment: will roll out WiMax this year, continue to add SKUs in future years. Perhaps most exciting, entry-level pricing for WiMax-ready notebooks will be $999 — that's not the price of the WiMax Eee, although Jonny promises an attractive MSRP.
2:40PM – We've been promised some new devices by an ASUS product manager. Let's see what they have to show. Here's the 15-inch M50 which we recently heard about, the one sporting up to 1TB of storage using dual Hitachi Drives. This machine also boasts Altec Lansing sound with built-in subwoofer.
2:42PM – Ok, here we have the R50A UMPC — WiMax-ready, 5.6-inch screen, built-in GPS, dual webcams, and digital TV tuner. Quite the package.
2:43PM – New EeePCs planned, 7-, 8-, and 8.9-inches, different colors. That's it, though, no pics, specs, or anything else we'd really want to see.
2:49PM – Question and answer session, time for us to split! Stick around for some hands-on video.