MacBook Neo Would Be A Threat Only If Microsoft Comes Up With A Steve Balmer Response

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The MacBook Neo is a laptop is hitting above its weight. From all indications, it can handle just about any daily computing tasks you throw at it and then some. Photo and video editing, even some light Blender work, gaming, and school/office work including coding. And it is doing all that for $600 or $500 for education. What's the response from outside of Apple's wall garden? So far, it's mostly muted and not the derision that we had come to expect from Microsoft executives. Nothing like when Steve Balmer, former CEO of Microsoft, said about the iPhone when Steve Jobs released it.

So far, the most direct statement about the Neo came from Asus CFO Nick Wu who said the newest MacBook is "a shock to the entire market" (Fortune). And that's it! It has been relatively quiet from Michael Dell, Microsoft's current Surface's lead, or other PC makers on the Neo. Qualcomm who is making ARM chips for the laptops to complete against Apple and Intel. 

While Qualcomm did say that they have been putting phone chips in laptops and tablets for years and that they are in a better position to compete (Tom's Hardware), the response from Alex Katouzian,  EVP and Group General Manager of the Mobile, Compute and XR (MCX) Business Unit (an impressively long title if nothing else), suggested that their chips is superior (Qualcomm's chips have an eight-channel memory interface while the Macbook Neo's A18 Pro only have a four-channel interface. At the same time, Qualcomm said Apple's using an chip developed for the iPhone validates their chip strategy and suggests that there is no difference between a chip developed for the smartphone and one developed for a PC (you can build a chip for a smartphone and scale it up for a PC). However, without getting into more about the difference in chip design and philosophy between Apple and Qualcomm, suffice to say, this is something that consumers who would buy the MacBook Neo would not care too much about.

It is important to note that Qualcomm's response is similar to what the way Steve Balmer was dismissive about the iPhone (consumers would not pay for a premium phone that has no physical keyboard and would amount to 2-3% of the market). Qualcomm also suggests that it is well positioned to compete in the $500-$600 segment of the laptop market with a better chip. However, does that translate into a better experience? Granted that I have zero experience with a Windows laptop running on a Qualcomm chip, I do use a Windows laptop running on an Intel chip at work I know that laptops with Qualcomm's chips do have excellent battery life. However, I cannot imagine the experience being any different. On the MacBook Neo, Apple has meticulously designed it to work run MacOS giving users the computing experience we have come to expect from Apple. 

What is surprising is we have heard very little from Microsoft. Perhaps this is because today's Microsoft is very different from days of Bill Gates and Steve Balmer. While Apple and Microsoft do compete in many levels, they also work together at times. We'll see what happens when Microsoft refreshes the Surface lineup and whether they have a true answer to complete with MacBook Neo. I believe many other PC makers will be looking carefully. If they cannot complete with Apple in the $500-600 range, look for PC makers try to go even lower. But what will a $400 Windows laptop look like?

I only know that it will not be pretty. Nor will be provide a great computing experience. I hope Microsoft and its partners forget about competing on specs and who has the better chip strategy and focus concerted roadmap that makes mobile computing better for the users. But if Microsoft does go Steve Balmer on the Apple's newest laptop, then we know they are in trouble because it means they have not found a way to really compete with the MacBook Neo.

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