Qualcomm wants piece of ultrathin market too

It's been almost a year since Intel® first announced it would shift gears and begin focusing on a new ultra-thin, lightweight notebook that would marry the best of both tablet and laptop computing. The end result was the Ultrabook™, an Intel-inspired device that is still trying to stake its claim as "the next best thing."

Intel's competitors, however, have apparently drank the Kool-Aid®, and are now looking to get their own pieces of the super-thin notebook market.

Qualcomm® is the latest to join the race. According to NotebookReview.com, the chipmaker, which has been hugely successful in the tablet computer and smartphone markets, is hoping to go toe to toe with Intel and introduce its own ARM-based processors for ultrathins.

There are still few details circulating the Qualcomm chipset, other than that Qualcomm is working with Microsoft® to get its processors to run on Windows® 8 computers. Tim McDonough, Qualcomm's vice president of marketing, says his company will benefit from its experience in the mobile market, asserting that Qualcomm has "grown up" in this space.

Fellow chipmaker AMD is also reportedly gearing up to launch its own take on the Ultrabook. The devices, based on AMD's Trinity platform, are expected to sell for 10 to 20 percent less than Ultrabooks and will be available mid-2012.