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Intel to provide $100 'marketing subsidy' to spur Ultrabook development?

Intel to provide $100 'marketing subsidy' to spur Ultrabook development?

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Intel will allegedly offer ultrabook manufacturers a $100 marketing subsidy to help lower prices across the board.

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ultrabooks
ultrabooks

We've now reviewed four ultrabooks, and while each is a decent machine, none has managed to compete with the MacBook Air when it comes to both price and quality. While you might argue that's not the point, it was Intel's original aim, and now Digitimes is reporting that Intel's prepared to further subsidize the ultrabook program — $100 per laptop — in order to allow ultra-thin notebook manufacturers to compete with Cupertino. According to the publication's sources in Taiwan, the money will allegedly be a "marketing subsidy" of some sort, so perhaps Intel will simply be pushing the envelope (pun intended) so the OEMs can focus on building better machines rather than advertising their products. Either way, Digitimes' anonymous sources expect ultrabook prices to go down as a result, and perhaps in time for another few dozen ultra-thin laptops to roll out.

Update: Acer in particular is looking at cheaper ultrabooks, with president Jim Wong saying that prices could drop by over $100 in the second quarter of 2012, and go down as low as $499 in 2013. We wonder what the definition of a $499 ultrabook will be.