VARs' Reaction To Mobile Pentium 4 Plans Mixed

Intel

Miles Austin, owner of Focus Computer, a Redmond, Wash.-based solution provider which sells Toshiba, Hewlett-Packard and Sony notebooks, said he expects market acceptance to be slow as the new processors offer more performance than most users require.

"Will people be clamoring for it? No," Austin said. "The Pentium III at 1GHz is now doing very well on laptops. Over the past few months, no one has said they want something faster."

In general, most notebook PCs are used on the road for e-mail, not for running an entire business or for serious number crunching, Austin said. "I believe there is a need for more faster processors in desktop PCs, but for mobile PCs, it's not really exciting," he said. "There's no real motivation [for users."

For John Loning, chairman and CEO of MobilePlanet, a Chatsworth, Calif.-based mobile and wireless integrator, the faster processors will allow his clients to increase productivity.

"Faster processors do not mean a demand jump right away," he said. "Instead, faster applications can now be developed, driving the demand for the faster processors."

For users who mainly use applications such as Word, Excel and e-mail, the latest processor may not be necessary, Loning said. "But for multimedia applications, such as video, streaming media and the convergence of broadband with wireless, it's a big help," he said.

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