The ABC's Of Ultra Mobility

It's tough to keep track of the ever-shifting jargon in the red-hot Ultra Mobility arena. What's the difference between a MID and a UMPC? Where does Google's Android fit into the picture? Why would anybody purposely say the word "Tweet" in public? The answer to all these questions and more can be found in ChannelWeb's easy-to-digest alphabetical guide to all things Ultra Mobile, beginning, of course, with the letter 'A':

A is for the Atom

Intel's latest tiny chip

It plays real nice with a small device

But will it ever ship?

B is for the Blackberry

So curvy, sleek and slim

But pity the guy who has to tie

The IT network into RIM




C is for the Classmate

Chipzilla's toy machine

It's Otellini versus Negroponte

While Gates collects the green

D is for the Demo show

Where new tech braves the heat

Of six-minute feeds on an edge that bleeds

Or so, as they say, we've heard Tweet






E is for the E-Book

A great idea indeed

But will kids turn the spindle on a brand new Kindle

If they never learn to read?

F is for you, Facebook

And Flickr's photo stream

Kids on the go may love Web 2.0

But reading Scoble makes us scream






Google, Google, you're our G

Your Android's gone Medieval

On closed designs for cell phone lines

To the Telcos, please be evil

H is for the Hoopla

The future's bright, I tell ya

So invest it all in something small

(Except this bridge I also want to sell ya)






I is for the iPhone

One of Apple's greatest Jobs

But we'd like to see less AT&T

Before we join the fanboy mobs

J's for the Jornada

As dead as Dell's old Axim

That they'll make stuff as dopey as GMate's Yopy

Is high tech's enduring maxim




The K in Intel's high-K

Gate dielectrics offers clear ...

Hey! What's with the groans? Stop quoting Bones!

Fine, we get it -- you're not an engineer

Linux, it begins with L

And the only thing that's worse

Than migrating to Vista, we're telling you, mista

Is hearing open-source zealots converse




M is for the wondrous MID

Small, powerful -- a bargain

What's that you say? What's it anyway?

Hey, we don't invent the jargon

Negroponte starts with N

St. Nick convinced us all that

His OLPC could guarantee

Laptops for every rugrat






O is for the OQO

The Porsche of gizmos to be sure

For 2,000 clams you can get your hands

On this pocket mid-life crisis cure

P is for the prescient Palm

A pioneering PIM promoter,

They once led the race in the PDA space

But it ain't '98 no mo', sir






Qualcomm is our choice for Q

Their 3G deals were tawdry

But that's at an end, so they contend

(Unlike their pals, the Padres)

R stands in for RISC

And the ARM chip architecture

With Intel's plans fixed, will it be x86'd?

It's worth watching this space, we conjecture






S is for the Smartphones

But how smart is it really, Hoss --

To drop, let's say, a full week's pay

On a digital leash to your boss?

T is for the Tegra

Nvidia's wee chipset

As light as a feather, the purpose, we gather:

Dialing Liberty City on your handset




U is for UMPCs

A confusing category

Are they tablets, MIDs or netbooks, kids?

Can't we agree upon one story?

V is for VIA-detta

Whose valuation's veering vendor-ly

'Midst the vicissitudes of verisimilitudes

To Intel's voltage vim, vows Enderle






Windows starts with W

Redmond digs that mobile tune

Too bad, to date, they've had the fate

Of dancing to it on a Zune

Y is Yahoo's watchword now

As in, 'Why'd Redmond's bid go bust?'

Now Google's might leads to a surreal sight:

Microsoft crying, 'Anti-trust!'




Z is for the Zodiac

Another one-time player

But in a space so crowded with new gizmos touted

Tapwave didn't have a prayer