Market ripe for Origami device, creator says

Now that Microsoft Corp. has officially unveiled its Origami project, the big question is what sort of market acceptance will greet devices based on the ultramobile platform.

Microsoft and Intel Corp. teamed up to debut the mobile platform Thursday at the Cebit show in Hanover, Germany, with Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. showing the first device designed around the Origami reference design. The executive behind the Origami project said the company gave careful consideration to customers' willingness to accept yet another mobile computing device before deciding to launch the product.

Microsoft built the reference design for Origami last year, and began shopping it around to customers to see if there was interest, said William Mitchell, Microsoft's corporate vice president of the Mobile Platforms Division.

When customer reception was generally positive, the company felt like it was time to come out with what it calls a third "design center" for the Windows OS, he said. The result, Origami, is closer to the interactive yet not completely engrossing experience people have when they use PDAs (personal digital assistants), Mitchell said. It also differs from the immersive experience of using a PC and the more relaxed experience of watching media on a Windows Media Center PC, he said.

Mitchell acknowledged that enthusiasts who typically purchase the latest and greatest gadgets will buy the first Origami devices. Several customers currently use either PCs or PDAs as mobile computing devices, find the experience lacking and will be the second wave of Origami adopters in the next 18 months, he said.

For instance, Mitchell said laptops are often too cumbersome for casual users to lug around, especially if they just want to access the Internet or download photos from a flash storage card while on vacation. On the other hand, a PDA is too small for a satisfying Internet-browsing experience.

Origami represents the kind of middle-ground device that could do all of these things, as well as have the benefit of playing media, enabling gaming and allowing people to store personal information, he said. And since Origami will combine all of these features, it could end up being the one device customers use in favor of the several they currently use -- such as portable music players, PDAs and portable media players, Mitchell said.

Michael Gartenberg, analyst with Jupiter Research, sees Origami in a slightly different way. He agrees there is a market for the device, but doesn't think it will necessarily replace existing products like Apple Computer Inc.'s iPod or the PDAs and PCs people already use.

But other portable media and game-playing devices that cost between US$500 to $1,000 -- the price point Microsoft is targeting for Origami -- and lack the computing power or functionality of the Windows OS may be in danger of obsolescence, he said in remarks sent via e-mail.

"The fact that Origami is a PC-based platform means that there's a lot of functionality that it's going to be capable of and, like the PC, be able to offer a no-compromise solution for most of these applications," Gartenberg wrote.