Members abandoning Intel's MID alliance? Hopefully.

Bad, but entirely expected news on the MID front. You remember the Mobile Internet Device right? UMPCs by another name usually running Linux-variants in that middling ground between smartphones and netbooks that nobody seems capable of making an attractive use-case for beyond the living room sofa? According to DigiTimes, "several members" of Intel's Mobile Internet Devices Innovation Alliance (MIDIA) have quit development of MID devices due to very weak shipments. Even the promise of Intel's Moorestown platform has lured "only a limited number of vendors" to launch related products in 2010. Sources claim that vendors will instead refocus on other areas of possible growth. Imagine that.

[Fanman Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:32AM]

The picture of the sinking warship seems a bit callus. Unless its from a film or something?

[brokensticks Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:36AM]

@(Unverified) The pic looks like it was photoshopped.

[FAP FAP FAP Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:44AM]

@brokensticks
What isn't shopped these days?

[davel Posted Nov 30th 2009 8:05AM]

@(Unverified)

The ship is HMS Antelope which was sunk during the Falklands Conflict and involved loss of life! Bit of a bad choice on Engadets part if you ask me!

[steeve Posted Nov 30th 2009 8:06AM]

@(Unverified) No its real, HMS Antelope sinking 1982 Falklands War, 2 dead.

[DaveA Posted Nov 30th 2009 8:24AM]

I guess any ship sinking will bring unhappy memories to someone and certainly there were worse incidents during the Falklands war. Still, doesn't feel right to use a picture of a serious subject to illustrate a light-hearted point in an article.

[jakem Posted Nov 30th 2009 8:37AM]

@davel

Oh come on. Who cares. This is just political correctness gone mad.

[Fanman Posted Nov 30th 2009 11:43AM]

@(Unverified) Just to clarify; that new picture is not the might of the royal navy.

[Gregory Pius Posted Nov 30th 2009 12:22PM]

@(Unverified) Lighten up, Francis.

[Sarig Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:32AM]

While Intel's MID is a failure, the concept most certainly is not. Just look at HTC HD 2, Nokia n900, and maybe even the iPhone, for examples of how something that is more than a phone and less than a computer is quite interesting indeed.

[pk Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:43AM]

@Sarig Those are all smartphones, not really MID's.

[I Like Cookies Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:32AM]

I LIKE COOKIES, BUT I HATE MID DEVICES!!!

But seriously, isn't this just any smartphone on the market today? There is not THAT much a leap between an iPhone/Droid/Palm/etc internet and a netbook's internet.

There is no market for something between a smartphone and a netbook unless the thing was priced for under $50...otherwise you could get an iPhone 3G or Pixi or what have you for $99. There is no demographic to buy a MID device, period.

...but I still like cookies.

[CtrlBurn Posted Nov 30th 2009 9:41AM]

Those are all smartphones. A MID is like a smartphone without the phone function. It's a stupid market because they all come out being less functional than a smartphone, but just as expensive.

[Alan Strangis Posted Nov 30th 2009 11:13AM]

@I Like Cookies

I doubt MIDs (or smartbooks) will ever take off. The combination of a smartphone which goes with you everywhere, and a netbook that can go just about everywhere else, is what works for most people.

MIDs and smartbooks are niche products, because MIDs don't have the display real estate that people need, and smartbooks not running a full OS, be it Windows or Linux, are kind of pointless.

[Eternity Posted Nov 30th 2009 7:38AM]

AKA: The Coalition of The Willing.
Well at least Kazakhstan is still staying the course. There may still be hope for the MID East's war on our wallets.

[I Like Cookies Posted Nov 30th 2009 8:23AM]

@swanle

You pretty much described what a netbook is. And, yes, it is proven that netbooks sell. :-/


Netbook > MID > Smartphone.

[glasgowd33 Posted Nov 30th 2009 8:29AM]

that is a royal navy ship sinking during the falklands war. get rid of the picture, engadget. tasteless. quite a few people died there. seriously...weak.

[sola Posted Nov 30th 2009 8:32AM]

Those vendors simply move to the ARM architecture and rebadge their products as "smartbooks".

For example: The ARM Cortex A9 has comparable processing power to the new Atom line but consumes fraction of the energy. The new gen Tegra will be based on this architecture too.

In the MID/smartbook category, it makes much more sense to use ARM at the moment, especially if you want to ship with Linux and want to sell around 200$ (that mostly guarantees volume shipments).

[Minions Posted Nov 30th 2009 10:05AM]

Please release my UMID M2 before closing up shop. I've been waiting long enough! I'm a gadget freak though, so I can see why it would be hard to get a normal consumer to pay extra money for a pocketable form factor.

[jojostar Posted Nov 30th 2009 10:07AM]

wow the falkland war wasnt that long ago.

I guess the next big consortium/alliance/company that goes under we will see an image of one of the world trade towers collapsing attached to engadgets reporting.

[jojostar Posted Nov 30th 2009 10:09AM]

p.s. i mean i get the whole battle of mid-way allusions and such. but the image used wasnt even from that battle.

[Gregory Pius Posted Nov 30th 2009 12:25PM]

The War for the Falkland Islands wasn't that long ago? In cosmic terms, I guess... the war took place in 1982! That's 27 years ago, chum.