Where Custom Is Cool: The Mini PC Grows Up
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\ • \ While AOpen viewed its slick-looking miniPC as a consumer product, system builders had other ideas, snapping up inventory for a variety of commercial niches. \ \ • \ Intel prepares to fire back at AMD with its dual-core server platform in what is shaping up to be a bloody battle for market share. \ \ • \ AMD's Henri Richard talks with CRN Editor Heather Clancy about the company's priorities and channel plans. \ \ • \ SAS drives are ready to go, but now system builders have to prime the market. \ \ • \ Distributors say system builders need to become solution builders, and they want to help. \ \ • \ Custom systems are under pressure, but easing component shortages could help, CRN polling indicates. |
When AOpen introduced its miniPC at the International Consumer Electronics Show in January, commentators immediately saw it as an answer to Apple Computer's year-old Mac mini—cute, functional, affordable and popular with some consumers.
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AOpen's miniPC—essentially an Intel Centrino platform squashed into the footprint of a CD-ROM drive—could be all that. But consumers, as it turns out, are going to have to wait in line. While AOpen originally viewed the slick-looking miniPC as a product with untested potential in the consumer market, the company's system builder channel had other ideas, eagerly snapping up initial inventory for deployment in a variety of niches.
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"We cannot fulfill demand right now," said Chris Liu, vice president of product marketing for AOpen America, San Jose, Calif. "The demand is so strong, and it's mostly coming from the VAR."
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With initial sales exceeding expectations, AOpen is now ramping up to sell an anticipated 1 million mini form-factor systems globally this year, Liu said, with the lion’s share going to U.S.-based solution providers for deployment in various commercial applications. The systems will be used in digital signage, kiosks, digital health care, POS, Media Centers, in-car systems and assorted other special applications—anywhere there is a desire to handle digital content in a small form factor.
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"They used to design with industrial-design motherboards, which was very high cost and also, technologywise, it was behind two or three years,” Liu said. "But we use the latest 915 and 945 chipsets with dual-core processors so that you’ve got the latest technology and will be able to deliver right now with a small form factor."
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For custom system builders, this comes as no surprise. A handful of companies have produced various "mini PC" motherboards over the last four or five years and fashioned a number of hybrid systems out of desktop and notebook components.
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In 2001, Via Technologies—by most accounts, the market leader in this category—introduced its Mini-ITX design, measuring 6.7 inches square, for use with its low-wattage processors and chipsets. Other companies such as Kontron, Commell Systems, DFI-ACP and BOLData adapted the Mini-ITX standard to Intel and AMD technologies.
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But now, the stage may be set for a "mini boom," partly driven by lower costs, improved performance and the growing availability of mobile computing components in the channel. The arrival of low-wattage mobile dual-core processors and enhanced integrated graphics promises to open up yet more new markets, including Media Center applications, for the mini PC.
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While there are smaller PC-on-a-board standards popular in the embedded market, such as PC/104, the generic mini PC is a complete system, spanning across embedded, single-use computing and vertical market applications.
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Fusion Microsystems, a system builder and solution provider in Centennial, Colo., has been looking at mini-PC systems for three years, but until now has found the platform too expensive and not beefy enough for its purposes. For its aviation industry applications, Fusion needed a fanless system with integrated power supply and graphics card. Now that the price of fanless power supplies has come down, the company recently began rolling out its first mini-PC systems for use in airports to control flight arrival and departure displays.
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"Three years ago you didn’t have the technology you have today," said Joe Stopski, vice president of business relations for Fusion. "You couldn't get the processing power. It's not just the embedded board; it's the video display."
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While AOpen viewed its slick-looking miniPC as a consumer product, system builders had other ideas, snapping up inventory for a variety of commercial niches.
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Intel prepares to fire back at AMD with its dual-core server platform in what is shaping up to be a bloody battle for market share.
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•
\
AMD's Henri Richard talks with
CRN
Editor Heather Clancy about the company's priorities and channel plans.
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SAS drives are ready to go, but now system builders have to prime the market.
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Distributors say system builders need to become solution builders, and they want to help.
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Custom systems are under pressure, but easing component shortages could help,
CRN
polling indicates.
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While AOpen viewed its slick-looking miniPC as a consumer product, system builders had other ideas, snapping up inventory for a variety of commercial niches.
\
\
•
\
Intel prepares to fire back at AMD with its dual-core server platform in what is shaping up to be a bloody battle for market share.
\
\
•
\
AMD's Henri Richard talks with
CRN
Editor Heather Clancy about the company's priorities and channel plans.
\
\
•
\
SAS drives are ready to go, but now system builders have to prime the market.
\
\
•
\
Distributors say system builders need to become solution builders, and they want to help.
\
\
•
\
Custom systems are under pressure, but easing component shortages could help,
CRN
polling indicates.
|
\ • \ While AOpen viewed its slick-looking miniPC as a consumer product, system builders had other ideas, snapping up inventory for a variety of commercial niches. \ \ • \ Intel prepares to fire back at AMD with its dual-core server platform in what is shaping up to be a bloody battle for market share. \ \ • \ AMD's Henri Richard talks with CRN Editor Heather Clancy about the company's priorities and channel plans. \ \ • \ SAS drives are ready to go, but now system builders have to prime the market. \ \ • \ Distributors say system builders need to become solution builders, and they want to help. \ \ • \ Custom systems are under pressure, but easing component shortages could help, CRN polling indicates. |
With prices for some mini-PC systems dropping into the $400 to $500 range, Fusion also sees a number of other uses for the systems—such as for appliances to save rack space—and as a VoIP controller unit for remote offices. "We just see it more and more," Stopski said.
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Another solution provider that is introducing a mini PC with its applications is Anode, Nashville, Tenn. The company sells its FireSign digital signage software primarily through a channel of AV resellers and integrators. In July, it inked a deal with BOLData Systems, a system builder in Fremont, Calif., to supply the servers, workstations and PCs, including a soon-to-be-available mini PC, to is its resellers with software preinstalled and carrying the FireSign brand.
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"We knew what we needed. We needed a small, powerful, affordable, reliable PC to run our player software and drive our displays," said Chris Lee, vice president of technology and FireSign product manager at Anode. "We did the research and found that a lot of them were coming from BOLData. Then we decided to have them build our server machines."
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Lee said many of the company's resellers have been using PCs in an equipment rack or ultra-small ATX-form-factor PC, such as Dell's OptiPlex, to control the displays. But he expects the mini-PC format will be a big hit. "We've not seen much resistance on price," he said. "I'm paying a little bit more, but this thing is almost invisible and you're getting as much performance."
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Anode is pricing its FireSign-branded mini PC, assembled by BOLData using the AOpen platform, at about $900. The Centrino platform includes a mobile Pentium 760 processor, 915GM Express chipset, DVD-CDRW combo drive, 60-Gbyte hard drive, 1 Gbyte of RAM, Windows XP Pro operating system, 10/100/1000 Ethernet connectivity, and USB and firewire ports.
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The integrated graphics and high-definition sound in the new Intel chipset is now capable of handling most of Anode's needs without the addition of a graphics card. "Three years ago, we saw these tiny machines, but they had Pentium 3's and on-board video, and they were expensive—easily double what we're paying now," Lee said.
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For BOLData, the mini boom has, in some respects, already arrived. The company first began manufacturing its own mini-PC motherboards in China in 2001 after landing a multiyear contract with the Shanghai municipal government for systems to read national ID cards. Since then, the system builder has found a variety of other customers. The company is currently building about 1,500 mini PCs a month for U.S. consumption, in addition to the 25,000 units it will build in China this year under the Shanghai contract.
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"Year over year, we've been growing our mini-PC sales 30 percent to 40 percent a year," said Eugene Kiang, BOLData CEO. "Lately we’ve been selling more of these than anything else. It's far better than the desktop or notebook market. They're small and you can put them anywhere."
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Competition from big vendors such as AOpen could seem to pose a threat to BOLData’s niche, but Kiang doesn’t see it that way. In fact, BOLData is now carrying AOpen's miniPC, offering it to client's such as Anode, and also uses Via and other platforms to meet its customers' various requirements. It offers about seven different models, including a new fanless mini PC with an aluminum case and an embedded Via processor that can boot from flash memory.
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"As AOpen and those guys start developing it, it gives us more choices to bring our cost down. For us to go build a board, the development cost is high. So now you're going to see a lot of people get into it, and you're going to see more choices for the board. It will be like the white-box desktop is today," Kiang said.
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Perhaps helping that evolution along, AOpen decided to introduce this month a Mini-ITX motherboard after realizing most of the demand for the miniPC was coming from VARs rather than consumers, Liu said. Its footprint is slightly larger than AOpen's proprietary miniPC design but offers an expansion slot.
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"Mini-ITX will be more flexible for the value-added reseller," Liu said. "Already there is a basic demand for the Mini-ITX form factor, so it’s easier to switch over to an Intel Pentium solution."
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Liu said AOpen does not intend to go after Via's market, but rather is opening a new market. "Via will still have their niche," he said. "But there is a digital content-type of application that requires more performance from the processor, and VARs are looking for this product."
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The size of the market and the speed at which it's growing is anybody's guess. Logic Supply, a Mini-ITX specialty distributor in Waterbury, Vt., has seen its business double every year for the past four years, said Roland Groeneveld, president and founder. He speculated that the overall market has been growing about 25 percent annually. “We’ve seen extreme growth,” he said.
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Groeneveld, who carries Via and is talking with AOpen, said he thinks the AOpen introduction will be complementary to Via and will give Via boards a boost by drawing more attention to the form factor. "The Via boards are pretty inexpensive—the board and the processor are all integrated—whereas AOpen is going to be more powerful and more expensive," he said.
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Gaynor deWitt, senior marketing manager for Via Processor Platforms, said Mini-ITX sales were up about 5 percent to 10 percent last year, but she expects faster growth this year as some of Via's design wins bear fruit. "There's a long design cycle, not like the PCs. There's a lot of focus on POS, hospital terminals," she said. "We're hoping to see more growth this year."
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DeWitt said Via has an advantage in that its boards can operate on less than 50 watts, rather than 200 watts, and can still handle all but the most demanding gaming applications, including digital media applications. "The very high-end Mini-ITX form-factor boards, using the most powerful CPUs, are more for the higher-end applications," she said. "It's not necessary to have that for many of the embedded applications."
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In November, Via introduced a $399 Mini-ITX motherboard that supports two 1GHZ processors, features advanced graphics processing and draws less than 15 watts of power.
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As awareness grows, the use of mini PCs in general-purpose consumer and business markets could grow as well. DeWitt sees a market for a second PC in the home, where people want a quiet PC in the bedroom or kitchen for e-mail and Internet access. "A lot of people are hoping it will take off with all these cute little systems coming out," she said. "And they are seriously cute."
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Kiang said the arrival of the USB interface, which allows people to easily add multiple peripherals, also overcomes the problem of upgradability. But he said the market is still not yet ripe for mainstream deployment, although that could come in time. After Apple launched its Mac mini, he said, BOLData began getting inquiries off the Internet from people looking for a PC version, and sales picked up. The Apple product introduction helped legitimize the form factor and woke people up to the idea, he said.
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"I think there is a whole area for growth here," he said. "This is the way the PC is going to head anyway. The desktop is going to shrink."
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•
\
While AOpen viewed its slick-looking miniPC as a consumer product, system builders had other ideas, snapping up inventory for a variety of commercial niches.
\
\
•
\
Intel prepares to fire back at AMD with its dual-core server platform in what is shaping up to be a bloody battle for market share.
\
\
•
\
AMD's Henri Richard talks with
CRN
Editor Heather Clancy about the company's priorities and channel plans.
\
\
•
\
SAS drives are ready to go, but now system builders have to prime the market.
\
\
•
\
Distributors say system builders need to become solution builders, and they want to help.
\
\
•
\
Custom systems are under pressure, but easing component shortages could help,
CRN
polling indicates.
\
•
\
While AOpen viewed its slick-looking miniPC as a consumer product, system builders had other ideas, snapping up inventory for a variety of commercial niches.
\
\
•
\
Intel prepares to fire back at AMD with its dual-core server platform in what is shaping up to be a bloody battle for market share.
\
\
•
\
AMD's Henri Richard talks with
CRN
Editor Heather Clancy about the company's priorities and channel plans.
\
\
•
\
SAS drives are ready to go, but now system builders have to prime the market.
\
\
•
\
Distributors say system builders need to become solution builders, and they want to help.
\
\
•
\
Custom systems are under pressure, but easing component shortages could help,
CRN
polling indicates.