Sebastian Junger's nonfiction book The Perfect Storm reports on how converging weather conditions had devastating consequences for a boat full of fishermen. I don't want to ruin the plot for you if you haven't read the book (or seen the movie) — suffice it to say that there is no happy rainbow after the storm.

For some reason, our industry regularly twists the phrase "perfect storm" to mean a favorable confluence of conditions that enable the success of some new product or technology. I'm sure you've heard of the "perfect storm" that facilitated the rapid growth of virtualization. In this context, the perfect storm is a good thing for some set of vendors or users. Moreover, vendors often try to manufacture "perfect storms." They think that if they cook up the right technology, appeal to the right set of users, and do this under the umbrella of some cool new acronym, they'll create a perfect storm that will catapult their new product to success. Case in point: the Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) and the Mobile Internet Device (MID).

Not Hot: UMPC

Here's the elevator pitch for the UMPC. You take a Tablet PC and shrink it to a device that weighs less than two pounds, and you outfit it with a five- to seven-inch screen. Then, to save power and thereby increase battery life, you install a low-end x86 processor, limited memory, and limited disk space. Finally, you add the Windows operating system (Vista or XP).

What are the results of this mixture of hardware and software? I contend that you get a device too small to be an effective boat anchor. I doubt that a UMPC could even anchor a kayak in a pond. You also get a device too crippled to do anything useful. In every UMPC I've tried, the combination of low-power hardware components and CPU-sucking Windows software results in a device that turns your hair gray after every click of the stylus. Oh, and by the way, you get to spend quite a few dollars (or euros) in the process.

Am I being too harsh? Maybe. The latest generation of Intel's low-power processors — the Atom line — will possibly provide sufficient performance to run Windows well in these pint-sized PCs. And UMPCs can be effective as single-purpose devices dedicated to running one application.

I'm just tired of holding my breath while waiting for UMPCs to prove their value. If you have a happy UMPC story to tell, please email me. In the meantime, UMPCs remain on my "not hot" list.

Slightly Warm: MID

Here's the elevator pitch for the MID. You create a tablet-like device outfitted with a four- to six-inch screen and capable of playing audio/video and accessing the Internet. Then, to save power and thereby increase battery life, you install a low-end x86 processor, limited memory, and limited disk space (sound familiar?). Finally, you add an operating system — typically Linux or *choke* Windows.

The good news about MIDs is that you don't have to run Windows on them, and they aren't intended to run applications such as word processors or spreadsheet programs locally. A MID is a media player with a conduit to the Internet. On MIDs, Internet access is available via Wi-Fi, Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX), or 3G technology.

I've played with a few of these devices, and the browsing experience was fine — better than on most phones (the iPhone is arguably an exception). Another advantage that MIDs have over phones is that you don't need to tie MIDs to a cell phone plan. You can use them on your own wireless network or on public wireless networks.

Overall, I think MIDs have more potential than UMPCs. Although the processing power available to a device that you can hold in your hand and operate on batteries for half a day is limited, media playing and Internet access fall well within the range of the MID's processing power.

Astro's Pick of the Litter

After my master's last Ultra-Mobile PC (UMPC) experience, which I reported here in June, he declared a moratorium on hand-sized computers and purchased a full-sized dual-core HP Tablet PC. He was prepared to dislike it. He unboxed it carefully so that he could return it if he hated it. But to both our surprise, he liked it. Sure, using a stylus with Windows took some getting used to (and I had to learn to carefully hold the stylus in my mouth), but overall, we both found the device excellent for Internet browsing and serviceable for local applications.

— Astro