Today battery’s blog

A wide-ranging group of trade associations has urged China to lift its requirement that an Internet filtering program be distributed with all new PCs, with the order set to take effect this week.

The letter sent by the group marks rising resistance to the mandate among foreign PC makers, partly over concerns about the security of the software, its alleged theft of code from a U.S. company and its censorship of political content in addition to pornography.

The mandate “seems to run counter to China’s important goal of becoming a vibrant and dynamic information-based society,” says the letter, signed by 22 organizations and addressed to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

The software raises questions of privacy, system stability and the free flow of information, says the letter, dated June 26, which was seen by IDG News Service. Signatories include the U.S.-based Information Technology Industry Council (ITI) and the commerce chambers of the U.S., the European Union and Japan.

The letter calls for China to reconsider implementing the mandate and requests a dialogue with the government.

July 1 is the deadline for the distribution of the program, called Green Dam Youth Escort.

China says the software is meant to protect children from “harmful” information online.

There’s an old saying, widely attributed to Will Rogers, that describes three types of people: “The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” In matters of technology, I’m a proud member of the third group. As a perfect example, I’m writing this article from the smallest Mac OS X laptop I’ve ever used: It weighs just under 2.4 pounds, and is only 9 inches wide, 6.7 inches deep, and 1.3 inches thick.

That’s right, I bought a netbook and installed Mac OS X on it. Even though Peter Cohen already spent some time with an Asus Eee PC. Even though Jason Snell already installed Leopard on an MSI Wind. I just needed to try out the whole “Hackintosh” thing for myself (though since it’s a laptop we’re talking about, I prefer the term HackBook). Just don’t tell Apple.

Hardware bargain

My HackBook is a Dell Vostro A90, the “business” version of Dell’s now-discontinued Mini 9. It has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor, an 8.9-inch LCD screen, 802.11g WiFi, 100Base-T Ethernet, a 0.3MP Webcam with an LED light, three USB 2.0 ports, Bluetooth, VGA video output, and an SD memory-card reader. I chose this model for two reasons: First, the Mini 9/Vostro A90 is the most OS X-compatible netbook on the market–once you get Mac OS X installed, most things just work. Second, and just as important, was the price: During one of Dell’s many sales, I purchased the A90, which came with 1GB RAM and an 8GB SSD, for just $199–a price so low I couldn’t resist.

Unfortunately, 8GB of storage was utterly insufficient. Even with the stock OS, Ubuntu, I had little room for media or additional apps. So I upgraded the A90’s SSD to a RunCore Pro 64GB model for $220 (yes, the drive cost more than the computer itself). Although less-expensive options are available–for example, Crucial’s 64GB SSD for $170–the RunCore has a reputation for considerably better performance.

As an aside, I went with 64GB because, having owned a MacBook Air with an 80GB hard drive, I was concerned that a 32GB SSD wouldn’t be spacious enough. But now that I’ve used the HackBook for a while, I’ve realized that, due to screen and performance limitations, I don’t use the A90 for many of the storage-hungry tasks I’d use a “real” laptop for, so a 32GB drive may have been adequate. (Crucial charges only $80 for a 32GB SSD, and a RunCore Pro version is just $120, so I could have saved quite a bit of money. Lesson learned.) On the other hand, I had planned to upgrade the A90 to 2GB of RAM, a $28 expense, but at least I was smart enough to wait on that upgrade–1GB has turned out to be enough for most of the things I use the HackBook for.

I’m not going to get into the process of installing Mac OS X on the A90. Suffice it to say that the Dell Mini community has really embraced OS X, and the procedure seems to get easier every month.

The experience

So how well does it work? It’s important to keep in mind the system’s limitations: a relatively slow processor and an underclocked graphics chip, a tiny 1024- by 600-pixel screen, a cramped keyboard, no optical drive, and a horrible, horrible trackpad. It’s a discouraging list of drawbacks, but apart from the trackpad, you know about these limitations going in: you buy a netbook like this, regardless of the OS, because you’re willing to trade performance to get an inexpensive, 2.4-pound laptop with a tiny footprint.

In that context, the computer performs better than I expected, and I was surprised to find that most standard features work under OS X: The computer successfully connects to my wireless network, the Webcam works with iChat, I can use Bluetooth input devices, and the keyboard’s volume, brightness, and sleep keys function normally. I’ve even updated the OS and various Apple apps several times using Software Update.

On the other hand, power management is a mixed bag. Specifically, the A90 running Mac OS X doesn’t always go into sleep mode after a period of inactivity; I have to remember to close the lid to put the laptop to sleep when I’m not using it. And have I mentioned that the trackpad is horrible?

I’m able to use most of my favorite Mac programs on the HackBook, although some apps, such as GarageBand, won’t launch because the laptop’s screen is too small (not that you’d ever want to run GarageBand on the A90). I didn’t test Microsoft Office; in fact, I didn’t even install it, knowing how much memory Office apps use. Apple’s iWork, on the other hand, works just fine. In other words, when I use the HackBook as a netbook–for Web browsing, e-mail, word processing, and other basic tasks–it works well. I’ve been especially impressed by the performance of Safari 4.

Still, I have had to adjust my workflow for the A90, in part due to the computer’s small screen–at only 600 pixels from top to bottom, you’re limited in terms of how much of each document or Web page you can view. So for the first time in my OS X-using life, I’ve got the Dock on the side of the screen; similarly, this is the first computer on which I’ve set the Dock to auto-hide. I also find myself using Readability on many Web sites to make them more readable on the tiny screen.

But the bigger hitch has been adjusting to the A90’s keyboard and trackpad. To fit the netbook’s tiny footprint, the keyboard has had to shrink quite a bit. Dell claims it’s “89% the size of a standard keyboard,” but that missing 11 percent feels like 25 or 30. Even more of an obstacle than the keyboard’s size is the key layout, which, in the interest of saving space, moves a number of frequently used keys to different locations. For example, the apostrophe/quotation-mark key has been moved from the middle row down to the bottom row, and the tilde key, normally beneath the escape key, is an Fn-key-modified function of the W key. The result is a keyboard that can be frustrating to use, especially if you frequently switch between it and a full-size model with a standard layout.

Then, of course, there’s the trackpad. It’s too small, its surface is too rough, and, most important, it doesn’t track very well. To make matters worse, the buttons–left-click and right-click–are recessed too far into the surrounding case, making them difficult to press. I find myself packing my favorite portable mouse whenever I go somewhere with the HackBook.

This fun is not for everyone

Despite those beefs, as a confessed gadget geek I’ve enjoyed the A90. The small size makes it at times more convenient to bring along than my MacBook; the battery generally lasts over 3 hours; and I’ve found it to be a handy machine for keeping in the family room for checking email and browsing the Web. And by illicitly installing Mac OS X on the Vostro A90, I’ve overcome what is, in my opinion, the biggest drawback of most netbooks: the operating system.

On the other hand, a tiny laptop like this isn’t for everyone. In fact, for many people, a netbook–even one running Mac OS X–is an exercise in frustration. It’s just not what most people expect from a “laptop.” (This is why I don’t see Apple ever making a netbook in the current sense of the word. Indeed, Apple continues to denigrate the idea of a small, low-cost Mac laptop, specifically citing small screens, cramped keyboards, and poor performance. We’re more likely to see a device closer to an oversized iPod touch.)

The HackBook has also rekindled my affinity for the MacBook Air. I bought the first model and really liked it. I sold that model late last year with the intention of upgrading to its improved successor, but for various reasons (mostly relating to me exhausting my yearly tech budget), I ended up with the $999 white MacBook. It’s a great machine, but it’s considerably bulkier and heavier than the Air. The HackBook, on the other hand, is tiny and light, but it’s far from a serious computer. The Air may be missing a few ports (compared to both machines), but for a 3-pound computer, it gets the important stuff–the screen, the keyboard, and performance–right. I’m thinking of selling both the HackBook and my MacBook and Goldilocks-ing it back to the Air, especially now that it’s a better computer than before for a lot less money.

As for “building” a HackBook, it’s of course a risk. If I ever have problems with the computer, I can’t turn to Dell or Apple. And it’s possible–probable?–that a future update to Mac OS X will render my HackBook unbootable, or at least less functional. But it’s at least been a fun experiment.

A long-awaited PC upgrade cycle among small and medium-sized businesses may lie just around the corner, according to an executive at a Taiwanese hardware maker.

The upgrade cycle could begin during the fourth quarter of this year as small and medium-sized companies may start replacing older computers with new ones, driven in part by demand for Windows 7, said Tony Liao, associate vice president of worldwide marketing at Gigabyte Technology, who spoke to reporters during a conference call organized by Intel.

Gigabyte is one of the world’s largest PC motherboard makers and produces a range of products, including laptops and desktops, based on Intel processors and chipsets.

If the promised upgrade cycle does happen, this would be the first widespread PC upgrade to happen in “several years,” Liao said, noting that hardware makers didn’t see widespread PC upgrades during the transition from Windows XP to Windows Vista, which was released in January 2007.

The problem at that time was Vista.

“Windows Vista was not so popular and not so suitable, in general,” Liao said, adding that by comparison Windows 7 should give users more reasons to buy a new PC.

Windows 7 is scheduled for release in October.

That forecast is good news for Intel, which held the conference call to discuss the findings of a research project carried out by Techaisle, which found that more small and medium-sized business are holding onto their computers longer before upgrading them.

Intel, which depends on sales of new computers to generate revenue, would rather see companies upgrade their computers every three years or so. In recent months, the company has tried to encourage companies to buy new PCs by warning that users who don’t will suffer from higher IT maintenance costs, security breaches and more frequent hardware failures.

Netbook owners are more likely to be disappointed with their machines than people who purchase larger and more expensive laptops, a retail research firm said today.

Just 58% of consumers who bought a netbook rather than a notebook said they were very satisfied, compared to 70% who admitted they planned to buy a netbook all along, according to a survey of 600 American adults conducted by the NPD Group.

The disappointment with netbooks — NPD analyst Stephen Baker preferred that term rather than “dissatisfaction” — stemmed from expectations that a netbook was the same, more or less, as a laptop. Six out of every 10 netbook buyers, said Baker, thought that the two were equivalent, and figured that their new netbook would have the same functionality as a laptop.

Notebooks generally sport larger screens, larger keyboards, larger hard drives and more memory than do netbooks. They also run different operating systems. Microsoft, for instance, sells its aged Windows XP Home to netbook makers, but markets Windows Vista to laptop OEMs. Rival Apple doesn’t even play in the netbook category, and instead aims for the higher end of the laptop price spectrum.

“OEMs aren’t marketing [netbooks] properly,” said Baker, “because consumers think they can use it just like a notebook.”

One age group was especially unhappy with netbooks. Among 18- to 24-year-olds, an important demographic to netbook sellers, who tout low prices to the money-challenged college-aged crowd, 65% said they expected better performance than they got from their netbooks. Only about one in four, 27%, said their netbooks performed better than anticipated.

Of the factors that netbook buyers prized, portability was tops, with 60% of those surveyed putting it at the No. 1 spot. But even there, consumers said one thing and did another, since that same percentage said that once theit netbook was home, it never left the house.

“I was impressed with the number of people who chose a netbook because of the mobility factor,” said Baker. “That means that at least some of the marketing message [by netbook makers] is getting through.” ‘The attraction of mobility, even if it’s a chimera to most buyers, gives OEMs something to work with, said Baker. “There is a value proposition to mobility, and the CULV stuff will address the mobility piece in a form factor that people might appreciate more than a netbook.”

CULV, or “consumer ultra-low voltage,” is the term slapped on the processors from Intel, AMD and nVidia that are to power a class of notebooks priced above $500 but below $1,000. They sport screens larger than netbooks, but cost considerably less than current ultra-portable notebooks.

“I think OEMs will be able to convince consumers to spend more on something with a bigger screen and a bigger keyboard,” said Baker, answering a question about netbook sales cannibalizing laptop sales.

One response by the consumers NPD polled, however, may make Microsoft a little nervous. “Of the features they cited as important, they said the operating system was the second-most important to their decision,” said Baker. Nearly all netbooks now sold run the ancient Windows XP Home.

Microsoft hopes to get computer makers to drop XP Home and instead install Windows 7 Starter, the lowest-price and least-capable edition of the new OS that will be available worldwide. To quiet a growing revolt by analysts and users angered over news that Starter would restrict them to running only three applications at the same time, Microsoft ditched that limitation last month.

“Retailers and manufacturers shouldn’t be putting too much emphasis on PC-like capabilities that could convince consumers that a netbook is a replacement for a notebook,” advised Baker. “Instead, they should be marketing mobility, portability and the need for a companion PC to ensure consumers know what they are buying and are more satisfied with what they purchase.”

A development center built through a partnership between the Taiwan government and chip maker Intel plans to make the Moblin Linux operating system popular in small devices by creating applications as well as incubating a developer base on the island and in China.

The Moblin Enabling Center (MEC) in Taipei plans to increase its staff to 30 engineers, from 20 currently, by the end of this year as it seeks to dramatically increase the number of applications available for the Moblin operating system, according to Phoenix Lee, a section manager at the Moblin Enabling Center, which is run by Taiwan’s publicly funded Institute for Information Industry.

The group also plans to start reaching out to university students to build Moblin application development groups, she said. Initially, the MEC will work with National Taiwan University, considered the best school on the island, but it will expand to other schools in Taiwan and then to China. The MEC hopes to attract student software developers to Moblin through contests and the potential to make money through a Moblin application store similar to Google’s Android Market, which includes both free and for-pay downloads.

The MEC opened last December to promote Moblin among Taiwanese device manufacturers and create new applications. The operating system was optimized to work with Intel Atom microprocessors, low-power chips made for small devices. Taiwan contributed money, the lab and engineers to the MEC project, while Intel added technical expertise, a few full time engineers and marketing support.

Taiwanese product makers such as Acer and Asustek Computer will be able to test Moblin in their devices at the MEC, once the compliance testing center opens there later this year. A test kit will be available for Moblin v2.0 around August, followed by the release of the final version of the OS and then the opening of the testing center.

But test support is only part of the mission. Expanding the popularity and developer base are just as important.

“That’s (testing) not enough, we need lots and lots of applications to be successful,” said Lee.

A number of Linux software makers have already jumped on board with Moblin. Around 15 companies showed off their own versions of Moblin early this month at the Computex Taipei 2009 computer show, including Novell with its SUSE Moblin, as well as Red Flag, Xandros, Linpus and Wind River Systems, which has agreed to be bought by Intel.

One reason Taiwan is so keen on Moblin is because of a long history working with x86 chips such as Atom in computers. Taiwanese companies have been part of the PC industry for years, and x86 chips are a PC mainstay. Taiwan hopes to see Intel succeed in taking x86 chips into smartphones because government officials believe the island will have an advantage over rivals due to years of experience with the chips.

“Moblin is the OS optimized for the Intel Atom processor,” said Lee. “When Intel gets into smartphones on the x86 platform, we will be right there.”

Taiwanese companies are already leading the charge for Intel in small handheld devices similar to smartphones. Several companies have launched handheld computers Intel calls mobile Internet devices (MIDs), with slightly larger screens than most smartphones. Taiwanese manufacturer BenQ, for example, made the S6, which has already been launched by Italian mobile carrier TIM, while Gigabyte Technology created the M528, which is being sold by Chunghwa Telecom in Taiwan.

Apple’s newest aluminum MacBook Pros are pretty slick in most regards, but some investigative folks had discovered what they believed to be a shortcoming in the models: in some units the SATA drive interface ran at a mere measly 1.5Gbps when even its predecessor, the non-Pro 13-inch MacBook, supported double that speed.

Owners of MacBook Pros that shipped with solid-state drives (SSD), meanwhile, reported that they had the 3Gbps interface, leading many to scratch their heads at the inconsistency. (Never mind that the traditional hard drives in the affected models can’t even take advantage of the 3Gbps speeds.)

Apple on Monday moved to correct that matter by issuing a firmware update for the June 2009 MacBook Pros. MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.7 lets those MacBook Pros use the 3Gbps specification, though Apple also warns that it has not offered drives that support the faster speeds–all previous and current MacBooks use 1.5Gbps drives–so the use of faster drives remains unsupported. The download is 3.35MB and requires Mac OS X 10.5.7.

Apple also issued an iMac EFI Firmware 1.4 Update for 20-inch and 24-inch early 2009 iMacs, which fixes problems where machines using ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics cards would intermittently stop responding, as well as issues with waking from sleep while in Boot Camp. It’s a 1.7MB download that requires Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later.

After a decade or so of talking about it, we’re finally approaching a world where your applications and data are no longer tethered to the personal hardware you use. Today this is mainly confined to Web e-mail and a couple of other browser-based apps (and maybe remote access to your desktop PC at work via VPN). But I’m convinced that desktop virtualization is on the cusp of becoming the next big craze, and if the client hardware is more or less immaterial, why not use a cheap netbook?

The argument for desktop virtualization is basically this: What you spend on back-end servers to maintain end-user desktops is made up for by a lower total cost of ownership, 24/7 employee access to desktop work environments, and low desktop horsepower requirements. Not to mention that all user data stays in the datacenter where it can be secured. There are still hurdles — applying desktop management to the server side is a new and evolving area, for example — but I have little doubt that they will be overcome.

[ Check out Business netbooks: IT revolution or contradiction in terms? for a review of four netbooks by InfoWorld contributor Randall Kennedy. ]

So why netbooks? Well, not only are they the cheapest, lowest-power-consuming PCs you can buy, but they’re also the smallest devices with which you can get heads-down productive work done on the road. Back at your desk you can plug one into a $150 LCD and a full-size keyboard. These days it’s hard to find Linux netbooks anymore — but who cares if all you can get is XP Home or Vista preinstalled? Go ahead, use Home as your terminal OS. Remember, the client OS is completely isolated from the virtual desktop.

To me, netbooks are just coincidentally good candidates for thin clients, in part because they’re selling better than any other personal computer in this crummy economy. Worried about what happens when a $300 piece of “plastic junk” breaks? No problem: Hand the user another netbook and work resumes without disruption. Ultimately, the greatest cost savings may be that you escape the hardware upgrade treadmill. New OS versions and fatter desktop apps may require a server upgrade, but the requirements for clients remain constant.

Client hardware aside, those who doubt the economies of scale offered by desktop virtualization should take note of the announcement IBM made last week. This year, IBM will offer a new Smart Business Desktop Cloud service, where IBM will maintain virtual desktop images accessible by customers via thin client. And yes, we’re talking about Windows and Office desktops (although you can opt for Lotus stuff if you want).

If investing in desktop virtualization still seems prohibitive, consider this: Some companies, including Google and BP, have explored the idea of enabling users to choose and maintain their own PCs. With desktop virtualization in place, employees could actually own (or co-own) their own netbooks in the same way people own mobile devices that access company e-mail.

The ramp-up to widespread desktop virtualization will take a few years, by which time netbooks may no longer be hot. But by then, who knows? Maybe you’ll be able to buy smartphones with little video and keyboard ports.

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For more IT analysis and commentary on emerging technologies, visit InfoWorld.com. Story copyright © 2007 InfoWorld Media Group. All rights reserved.

See more like this: netbook, desktop, desktop replacement, ultraportable

Have you ever wanted to ditch your clunky laptop? Perhaps you were meeting a client for dinner or friends at a bar after work. Or you were trying to catch a flight in the morning and had to fumble with your laptop at the airport security check.

Sure, laptops have become lighter, thinner and less cumbersome (think: MacBook Air, Dell Adamo and netbooks). But a laptop still needs to be carried around town in a backpack or other carrying case (or so that’s what IT says). And this means checking it at coat-checks, making sure you don’t forget it inside taxi cabs, and keeping a constant eye out for laptop thieves.

[ Laptops don't feel the love, reports CIO. | Reviewers weigh in on iPhone 3.0. ]

But help is on the way: As smartphones grow in functionality (the iPhone 3G S and iPhone 3.0), you might be able to forego the laptop in favor of a smartphone. Imagine the freedom that comes with a computer on your hip, not strapped to your back.

Before we get carried away, though, it should be noted that a smartphone can’t replace a computer-at least, not yet. “Smartphones are still content consumption devices, not content creation ones,” says Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney. “Every knowledge worker has to do content creation, so you’ve got to have a desktop or a laptop to do it.”

Today, a smartphone might be able to replace a laptop when you’re on the road and then sync to a desktop at the home or office where you’ll do most of your content creation. “That’s a very valid scenario in some cases,” Dulaney says.

In the past, mobile laptops replaced desktops even though desktops were cheaper and more powerful. Now desktops-thanks to smartphones-have an opportunity to turn the tables on laptops.

How to Make the Scenario Work

That’s what Don MacRae, a former investment bank executive and avid laptop user, hopes to do. He’s making the leap: dumping his old laptop, buying a cheap PC and hoping his BlackBerry 8330 will handle all his computing needs when he’s on the road.

One of the reasons for the decision, MacRae says, is that his BlackBerry now runs “critical” apps comparable to those on his laptop. His critical BlackBerry apps include: Opera Mini, reQuall, Documents to Go, Yahoo Go, Viigo, among others. He’s also getting a Bluetooth portable keyboard to keep in his suitcase for content-creation emergencies.

“If you’re going to be crunching numbers on an Excel spreadsheet or writing documents all day long, you’re not going to want to do that on a BlackBerry,” MacRae says. “But if you’re managing people and on the phone a lot, or in sales and going on a quick overnighter to see a client, you could make a good case for traveling light with just a BlackBerry.”

It’s still early in MacRae’s big experiment, but he can already see problem areas. For instance, MacRae worries that he might one day need a document or e-mail from the archives that aren’t on his BlackBerry but on his computer back home. Or he might be unable to modify an important attachment.

Compatibility Is Where You Run Afoul

Dulaney says that MacRae’s worries are the tip of the iceberg. Gartner recommends companies don’t go this route, in part because users may run afoul of IT policies and face compatibility and performance issues.

As to IT policy, Gartner tells companies to require users to view all company e-mails and attachments on a PC or laptop. That’s because smartphones might not convert attachments properly. Even Documents to Go doesn’t run all the macros, Dulaney says, and thus you might not be able to see the document fully.

With performance, just try giving presentations on a BlackBerry. “Performance is going to be slow,” Dulaney says, “and you won’t be able to run all the software.” Hiccups in a sales presentation, of course, can be deal killers.

The biggest problem, though, concerns compatibility. Consider iPhone OS, which runs a shrunken version of OS X. There are some layers of OS X that simply don’t run on the iPhone. “Compatibility is always a problem because of the nature of running different operating systems with different utilities on different platforms,” Dulaney says.

Data in slideshows, Excel spreadsheets and Word documents might be viewable on a smartphone, but the additional extensions and functionality may not be there. Even the viewing of Windows Office content can be tricky because Windows Office wasn’t built to be scaled down and viewed on a small smartphone screen.

“Sure you could hook up a keyboard, power supply and larger screen to an iPhone and run Office-in theory, at least-but have you gained anything?” Dulaney asks. “You’d probably be better off with a laptop or netbook.”

But Dulaney does say that the smartphone-desktop combo can work in some cases, particularly for European business folks who do a lot of day trips and have access to Internet kiosks. Here in the U.S., though, business folks tend to do more overnight trips.

“The more you stay away from your desk,” Dulaney says, “the more difficulty you’re going to have.”

Got a different take? Send me an email at tkaneshige@cio.com. Or follow me on Twitter @kaneshige. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline.

Laptops and desktops could see software performance gains with parallel programming tools built into Apple’s new operating system, Mac OS X 10.6, which was introduced by the company on Monday.

A number of enhancements allows the OS, code-named Snow Leopard, to tap into the processing power of multiple CPU and graphics processing cores to boost software performance. The OS builds in multiple programming and software tools that divide up tasks for simultaneous execution across the cores.

Snow Leopard is more intelligent than its predecessors in taking advantage of hardware resources available to drive system performance, observers said on Monday. The OS also is better at identifying resources available and can accordingly allocate threads across multiple cores and processors, observers said.

The new tools in Snow Leopard include Grand Central Dispatch, a programming environment that breaks up tasks into multiple threads based on the number of cores and threads available. It also builds in native support for OpenCL, a set of programming tools to develop and manage parallel task execution.

“A lot of Macs will have supercomputers sitting there for free,” said Neil Trevett, president of The Khronos Group, the standards organization that defines the specifications for OpenCL.

Video processing in particular could see up to 50 times improved performance on Macs with the new OS, Trevett said. Video decoding could be a lot faster as pixel processing will be distributed across multiple CPU and graphics processing units in a system.

Snow Leopard’s evolution is tied to challenges hardware and software makers have faced in the past. The traditional way of boosting application performance on PCs was by cranking up CPU clock speed, said Linley Gwennap, president and principal analyst at The Linley Group. That led to software being written in a sequential mode for execution on a single core, with an increase in clock speed providing the boost in software performance.

Ultimately, cranking up clock speed led to excessive heat dissipation and power consumption, and chip makers like Intel reverted to adding cores to boost performance. That brought a set of new issues to software developers, who faced the challenge of writing applications to take advantage of multiple cores to scale application performance.

“As the processor vendors brought forth dual-core and multicore processors, the operating systems guys have had to play catch up in terms of bringing out software that works with the new chips,” Gwennap said. Apple has unlocked a piece of the software puzzle, as parallel processing is the only way ahead to get big gains in performance, he said.

Apple has also laid the groundwork for software providers to write multicore applications with Snow Leopard, Gwennap said. But users may not see performance benefits until programmers stop writing applications for single-core processors and retrain themselves to write in parallel.

Another analyst agreed with Gwennap, saying that programmers aren’t used to thinking in parallel, even though the problem dates back to the 1940s.

“Programmers have to be educated to think about how to break down their program into multiple tasks that can execute simultaneously,” said Tom Halfhill, senior analyst at In-Stat, and senior editor of Microprocessor Report. Native support for OpenCL in Snow Leopard could encourage more programmers to write in parallel.

OpenCL is a programming framework that includes a C-like programming language with a few APIs to manage distribution of kernels across hardware like processor cores and other resources.

Apple’s push of parallelism to desktops and laptops could ultimately reach smartphones, Halfhill said.

“Ultimately Apple could go migrate it down into products like their iPhone,” Halfhill said.

But Microsoft isn’t far behind Apple, Halfhill said. Microsoft is trying to bring in additional multicore execution capabilities with its upcoming Windows 7 operating system through a new DirectX set of application programming interfaces (APIs). Earlier versions of Windows — like Windows XP and Vista — have been panned by observers for failing to take advantage of multiple cores in CPUs to boost application performance.

Of course, Mac enthusiasts might even say the Apple tax never existed, since no MacBook Pro competitor has the aluminum unibody construction or multi-touch track pad that the MacBook Pro does.

In any case, I’ve been playing with the numbers, and I’ve noticed something interesting: When the newest 13-inch MacBook Pro is configured with similar features and put head to head with a Dell XPS 1330 (arguably Dell’s most similar computer), the two come within spitting distance in price.

The base price for the 13-inch MacBook Pro is $1199 while the Dell XPS M1330 starts at $749. Using each company’s online configuration tool, I created systems with the following attributes: 13.3-inch LED backlit screen, 4GB RAM, 320GB Hard disk, Nvidia GE Force 9400M Graphics Card, 802.11n networking, integrated webcam, backlit keyboard and Bluetooth. The MacBook comes with a 2.26 GHz Intel processor with a 1066 MHz frontside bus, versus 2.4 GHz and 800 MHz, respectively, for the Dell.

The Dell was configured with a 9-cell battery, which should at least approach the 7 hours Apple advertises for its integrated battery. Dell’s computer weighs in at just under 4 pounds with a 6-cell battery and with the 9-cell is likely to be pretty close to the MBP’s 4.5 pounds. Both included a one-year warranty. Including Windows Vista Home Premium, the Dell came out to $1304 as compared to $1399 for the Apple. Apple tax: $95.

For those willing to put a premium on the featherweight computing experience, the new $1499 base price of the MacBook Air should give you a reason to take a fresh look. Also, it should cause Dell to break a sweat as the competing Adamo now starts at a full $500 more. In its $1799 configuration, the Air matches the 128GB Solid Stage Drive of the Adamo and bests its 1.2 GHz processor with one that clocks in at 2.13 GHz. Both come with 2GB of RAM and no optical drive. The Air weighs one full pound less than the Adamo at 3 lbs.

If you’ve been attracted to OS X and the Apple computer experience, but have been put off by high prices, Apple just extended an olive branch to you.

Michael Scalisi is an IT manager based in Alameda, California.