Intel to invest $300 million in Ultrabooks

Intel will invest $300 million during the next three to four years in an effort to speed up the development of its new “Ultrabook” category of laptops, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Intel will provide its hardware and software partners with funding and hopes that the cash will be enough for its partners to develop Ultrabooks that can last a full day on a single charge. “The Intel Capital Ultrabook fund will focus on investing in companies building technologies that will help revolutionize the computing experience and morph today’s mobile computers into the next ‘must have’ device,” Intel Capital Corp. executive vice president Arvind Sodhani told Bloomberg. Intel began discussing the new Ultrabook category during the Computex trade show in March. It hopes the computers will grab 40% of the consumer laptop market by the end of next year and says the devices will combine the performance of today’s laptops with a tablet-like experience in a thin and light product. Recent reports have suggested that Acer, ASUS, Dell, Lenovo and HP will begin mass producing Ultrabooks in September and ASUS’ UX21 is expected to be the first model to hit the market.

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