Design by Lenovo
By Peter Wolchak
November 20, 2011
November 20, 2011
Peter Hortensius is the president of the product group at Lenovo. He has front-line responsibility for the look and functionality of almost all the company’s products, and because Lenovo is the world’s second-largest computer manufacturer, that influence spreads to every competitor. So what does the Canadian-born Hortensius see in computing’s future? Keyboards are forever, only three tablet operating systems are relevant and HP’s WebOS is simply a non-starter.
Backbone: Design is now all computer shoppers care about. The specs—processors, hard drives, graphics—of even inexpensive computers exceed the needs of almost every buyer, and what people care about is the look, colour and feel of a product. As the person who signs off on Lenovo designs, do you agree?
Hortensius: I would phrase it in terms of user experience. Is the product too heavy to carry, does it look attractive, is it thin, how is the keyboard? But I agree with you: while well-versed buyers understand the more technical aspects, what drives most people is price and user experience.
Backbone: And battery life. A machine with a 90-minute battery is less useful.
Hortensius: Correct. If you want an eight-hour battery, that is going to take up a lot of space and weigh more. For example, [Lenovo’s new 12.5-inch U260 notebook] has three to fours hours of battery life. I think that’s too little and what we’re driving for is eight hours. We have ThinkPad products that come in at 15-plus hours but that’s with a big-honking battery and is for people who say “I don’t care, I’ll carry it, I just don’t want to even think about the battery life.”
We are working very hard with Intel, Microsoft, etc., to drive a holistic internal design. That means when I close the lid I can open it up two days later and it’s used very little power, for example. Right now, some of the more lifestyle-type products are a little low on battery life, but coming this fall and into next year you’ll see battery life step up.
Backbone: But you head the group that created the U260, with three to four hours of juice.
Hortensius: Any product is a trade-off. How hard do you emphasize [one area] and what do you trade off? We have smart people who figure out what each segment wants and then tailor products to those segments.
Backbone: In 10 years, will you still be selling notebooks with keyboards?
Hortensius: Absolutely. Look at history. If you want a high-productivity environment, the fastest way to type is on a keyboard. Maybe the screen is detachable, maybe we add this or that design feature, but keyboards are simply part of the deal.
Remember that laptops ended up in a clamshell design not because of some brilliant designer, but because that’s what makes sense; it matches ergonomic designs we’ve had for centuries. Look at pianos: they are a clamshell design. It’s the same with typewriters.
Backbone: What is going to get people saying “Wow!” about notebook design in the next five years?
Hortensius: More speech, more natural human interaction. People want to interact with technology in a way that is natural to them.
Backbone: What about touch interfaces? That hasn’t been too successful thus far.
Hortensius: We’ve made notebooks with touch screens but they didn’t sell that well. They were ahead of the times and the operating system didn’t really exploit touch. But things will change when Windows 8 comes out. So will people use touch? Maybe, if we have the right hardware to offer.
So that’s the big question. Is the future one device, that has touch, or is folded over somehow, or maybe it’s some kind of combo device? Or do we want two devices, where we really optimize the notebook and we really optimize the tablet?
Backbone: I have to ask what you make of HP’s two recent decisions: to give up on tablets and to exit the PC business. (The interview took place before Meg Whitman replaced Leo Apotheker as HP’s CEO.) Does it make sense for Lenovo to buy HP’s PC business?
Hortensius: I am not from HP and I can’t comment directly on their business, but when we look at the PC industry we see a lot of growth, and we are growing like crazy. We have no interest in getting out of this business.
We’re the number three PC manufacturer in the world. If the number one guy says he doesn’t want to be in the business, that opens up opportunities in lots of different ways that don’t necessarily involve acquisition. But that’s as far as I can comment, other than to say we are not confused about who we are.
Backbone: WebOS is out there looking for a buyer. Any interest there?
Hortensius: This is a great example of looking to the market. You have Apple with iOS: it has a base and people want to develop for it. You have Android: there is a base and people want to develop for it. Windows 8 is right around the corner, and people are going to want to develop for that. So that’s three. Developers are coin operated and they only have so much bandwidth, so they follow the market. That makes it tough for WebOS. You can differentiate with it but, without apps, it’s not going to happen.
Backbone: RIM didn’t make your list.
Hortensius: RIM comes out of a smartphone base and so I think the mainstream tablet area is a challenge for them.
Backbone: Let’s talk tablets. Lenovo recently launched three, including the business-oriented TouchPad Tablet. It runs Android. How does Lenovo differentiate itself in a crowded field?
Hortensius: On the ThinkPad Tablet, the notable features are full-sized ports (USB, dock connector), a pen (stylus) and a number of business applications.
We started with the idea that it has to be a great consumer device. If it’s not it will not address its core modality of working within the one-foot user interface that is evolving for tablets. People talk about content creation vs. consumption with tablets but we think in terms of fun vs. serious. If I’m creating a presentation then that’s serious, but if I’m reading a presentation I guess it may not be fun but it’s not serious work, and I can do that on a tablet.
And then for the IT guys, we have the ability to trace a tablet or wipe it, if it disappears. The goal is to build a bridge to the IT guys, so it’s a device they want to deploy in the enterprise as opposed to a device they are forced to accommodate.
Backbone: Tablets are big right now, but they’re not going to replace notebooks for business users.
Hortensius: Here’s the thing: notebooks are becoming more pad-like. Between Intel’s Ultrabook initiative, the features Microsoft is talking about with Windows 8 and the things we do, you will start to see PCs take on the best of the tablet attributes: always on, always connected; thin and light; great battery life; and an application model that supports the legacy style of buying a few big applications and the new style of buying hundreds of small applications. At that point, the lines start to blur.
Photo: Lenovo
Also read:
Backbone's Hot Gadget reviews
Backbone: Design is now all computer shoppers care about. The specs—processors, hard drives, graphics—of even inexpensive computers exceed the needs of almost every buyer, and what people care about is the look, colour and feel of a product. As the person who signs off on Lenovo designs, do you agree?
Hortensius: I would phrase it in terms of user experience. Is the product too heavy to carry, does it look attractive, is it thin, how is the keyboard? But I agree with you: while well-versed buyers understand the more technical aspects, what drives most people is price and user experience.
Backbone: And battery life. A machine with a 90-minute battery is less useful.
Hortensius: Correct. If you want an eight-hour battery, that is going to take up a lot of space and weigh more. For example, [Lenovo’s new 12.5-inch U260 notebook] has three to fours hours of battery life. I think that’s too little and what we’re driving for is eight hours. We have ThinkPad products that come in at 15-plus hours but that’s with a big-honking battery and is for people who say “I don’t care, I’ll carry it, I just don’t want to even think about the battery life.”
We are working very hard with Intel, Microsoft, etc., to drive a holistic internal design. That means when I close the lid I can open it up two days later and it’s used very little power, for example. Right now, some of the more lifestyle-type products are a little low on battery life, but coming this fall and into next year you’ll see battery life step up.
Backbone: But you head the group that created the U260, with three to four hours of juice.
Hortensius: Any product is a trade-off. How hard do you emphasize [one area] and what do you trade off? We have smart people who figure out what each segment wants and then tailor products to those segments.
Backbone: In 10 years, will you still be selling notebooks with keyboards?
Hortensius: Absolutely. Look at history. If you want a high-productivity environment, the fastest way to type is on a keyboard. Maybe the screen is detachable, maybe we add this or that design feature, but keyboards are simply part of the deal.
Remember that laptops ended up in a clamshell design not because of some brilliant designer, but because that’s what makes sense; it matches ergonomic designs we’ve had for centuries. Look at pianos: they are a clamshell design. It’s the same with typewriters.
Backbone: What is going to get people saying “Wow!” about notebook design in the next five years?
Hortensius: More speech, more natural human interaction. People want to interact with technology in a way that is natural to them.
Backbone: What about touch interfaces? That hasn’t been too successful thus far.
Hortensius: We’ve made notebooks with touch screens but they didn’t sell that well. They were ahead of the times and the operating system didn’t really exploit touch. But things will change when Windows 8 comes out. So will people use touch? Maybe, if we have the right hardware to offer.
So that’s the big question. Is the future one device, that has touch, or is folded over somehow, or maybe it’s some kind of combo device? Or do we want two devices, where we really optimize the notebook and we really optimize the tablet?
Backbone: I have to ask what you make of HP’s two recent decisions: to give up on tablets and to exit the PC business. (The interview took place before Meg Whitman replaced Leo Apotheker as HP’s CEO.) Does it make sense for Lenovo to buy HP’s PC business?
Hortensius: I am not from HP and I can’t comment directly on their business, but when we look at the PC industry we see a lot of growth, and we are growing like crazy. We have no interest in getting out of this business.
We’re the number three PC manufacturer in the world. If the number one guy says he doesn’t want to be in the business, that opens up opportunities in lots of different ways that don’t necessarily involve acquisition. But that’s as far as I can comment, other than to say we are not confused about who we are.
Backbone: WebOS is out there looking for a buyer. Any interest there?
Hortensius: This is a great example of looking to the market. You have Apple with iOS: it has a base and people want to develop for it. You have Android: there is a base and people want to develop for it. Windows 8 is right around the corner, and people are going to want to develop for that. So that’s three. Developers are coin operated and they only have so much bandwidth, so they follow the market. That makes it tough for WebOS. You can differentiate with it but, without apps, it’s not going to happen.
Backbone: RIM didn’t make your list.
Hortensius: RIM comes out of a smartphone base and so I think the mainstream tablet area is a challenge for them.
Backbone: Let’s talk tablets. Lenovo recently launched three, including the business-oriented TouchPad Tablet. It runs Android. How does Lenovo differentiate itself in a crowded field?
Hortensius: On the ThinkPad Tablet, the notable features are full-sized ports (USB, dock connector), a pen (stylus) and a number of business applications.
We started with the idea that it has to be a great consumer device. If it’s not it will not address its core modality of working within the one-foot user interface that is evolving for tablets. People talk about content creation vs. consumption with tablets but we think in terms of fun vs. serious. If I’m creating a presentation then that’s serious, but if I’m reading a presentation I guess it may not be fun but it’s not serious work, and I can do that on a tablet.
And then for the IT guys, we have the ability to trace a tablet or wipe it, if it disappears. The goal is to build a bridge to the IT guys, so it’s a device they want to deploy in the enterprise as opposed to a device they are forced to accommodate.
Backbone: Tablets are big right now, but they’re not going to replace notebooks for business users.
Hortensius: Here’s the thing: notebooks are becoming more pad-like. Between Intel’s Ultrabook initiative, the features Microsoft is talking about with Windows 8 and the things we do, you will start to see PCs take on the best of the tablet attributes: always on, always connected; thin and light; great battery life; and an application model that supports the legacy style of buying a few big applications and the new style of buying hundreds of small applications. At that point, the lines start to blur.
Photo: Lenovo
Also read:
Backbone's Hot Gadget reviews
