Mobile momentum

"Santa Rosa is one of the biggest launches for us," he said. "We have bullish expectations. We are expecting strong take-up in commercial and SMB accounts."

Gore said users historically had access to good management tools on the desktop front, but not on the mobile side. The latest platform lets them take advantage of Intel's Active Management Technology (AMT) at a notebook level, which gives a nice performance enhancement. A key feature is out-of-band management, which lets professionals remotely recover systems after OS failures.

"This is significant because the major cost for IT is the support and services. It's not just the hardware cost, but the service manageability," Gore said. "Errors can occur within or outside office hours, so IT administrators need centralised administration for the IT fleet."

Other top benefits to the latest ThinkPad R61 and T61 notebooks include a new cooling system device which lowers the noise level by three decibels and surface temperature by 10 per cent.

"Like the wings of an owl, the design is silent, efficient and offers effective air flow as there's an improvement in the way air is conducted through the system," Gore said.

The addition of a top cover roll cage for the LCD is significant as it gives additional strength to the notebook. It also means better wireless performance, Gore said, as it greatly increases signal strength and eliminates the need for external antennas.

Acer notebook product manager, Lindsay Tobin, predicted Santa Rosa machines would make a big splash in the education sector by the end of the year. Users in corporate and government sectors are already taking advantage of it as they look to upgrade, he said. Along with remote management capabilities, Tobin said enhanced security features like fingerprint readers were a highlight.

Fujitsu PC product manager, David Niu, agreed Santa Rosa was creating demand in the notebook space and offered resellers a big selling point. Some of the vendor's latest models, including the LifeBook E8410, take advantage of the new dual processor, faster front bus and beefier wireless functionality with N standard support.

Features include the next-generation Intel Centrino Pro processor technology featuring a 64-bit Core 2 Duo Processor, Nvidia external graphics, a 15.4-inch SuperFine Wide XGA TFT screen, a maximum of 4GB memory and a 120GB hard drive. Built on the 965 chipset, Niu said the mobile computing platform features Intel PRO/Wireless 4965AGN/4965AG wireless connection, Intel 82566MM Gigabit Network Connection with AMT and Intel Virtualization Technology (VT) support.

"This translates into greater efficiency and productivity, enabling IT professionals to easily identify and recover problem network areas and protect network computing assets," Niu said. "Managing laptops is a big task, especially when you have 50-100 seats. Managing a new OS and ensuring updates for Windows while taking care of the antivirus is complicated and costly. The latest Centrino Pro enables centralized management."

But the industry shouldn't count its chickens just yet, IDC's Gunson warned.

"Whether the commercial market takes on the Santa Rosa platform and starts to implement it remains to be seen," he said.

Niu also expected to see integrated cameras pop up on the latest crop of notebooks (ideal for online meetings), and more portable machines (with a 10.6-inch screen) utilising LED backlights.

Feeling secure
Security and notebook management are top pain points for any portable PC customer, HP market development manager for commercial notebook, Janet Bradburn, said. In a bid to ease concerns HP has souped up security on the hard drive.

"Typically security has been on the notebook, but now it is also included in the hard drive," Bradburn said. "We're offering an advanced way to encrypt the hard drive so if it's lost or stolen it still can't be compromised. "We weren't able to offer this before in the industry. Now we can offer two layers of security: on the notebook itself, and enhanced drive encryption on the hard drive which is standard on HP's 2007 business notebook range."

Ideal for large managed environments, drive encryption enables full-volume encryption to automatically protect the sensitive information stored on a user's disk volumes. The latest technology offers support for Microsoft Windows XP and Vista with single-step logon, and for authentication technologies including passwords, Smart Card, and the trusted platform module (TPM). "We're still seeing security as a major concern, so these types of tools are a great help," Bradburn said.

The added security functionality will appeal to government and education customers: two market hot spots this year.

"Whole-of-government agreements and the request for consolidation is a high growth area," she said. "In education, there's an opportunity in both private and public schools, although the buying is different." Public schools are scooping up mid-range gear, want general sized equipment and are not overly concerned with getting the highest or latest and greatest specifications, Bradburn said. In contrast, private and independent schools are after smaller and lighter ultramobile machines.

Wireless and the inclusion of the new draft N specification in this year's range was another notebook notable, Bradburn said. The new standard offered significantly better range that was double current WLAN capabilities and offered fi ve times the bandwidth, she said. This functionallity allows partners to pick up work in readying the infrastructure for access points and cabling. While HP was already seeing uptake of the N standard, 2008 would be the splash out year, she said. Partners therefore needed to help a company get its ducks in order and future proof.