When Intel CEO Craig Barrett took the stage Wednesday in New York to talk about Centrino, the atmosphere was almost anticlimactic. News organizations had for days been swarming with stories of Intel's strategy to provide PC makers with the microprocessor, chipset, and 802.11 technologies needed to forever untether laptops. Intel had already concluded media conferences in Tokyo, Beijing, and London earlier in the day.

Barrett, however, chose to focus on the future during the New York event. He positioned Centrino as the integration of several technologies that together would provide ubiquitous delivery of information. "After 20 years of talking about it, this is really the most tangible example of the convergence of computing and communication."

Intel appears to have the buy-in from PC makers, many of which introduced new models to coincide with Centrino's launch. Ninety percent of PC makers are building PCs with all three components of Intel's Centrino line, says Anand Chandrasekher, VP and general manager of Intel's mobile platforms group. "This is in contrast to last year's Mobile Pentium 4 launch," he says, adding that there are four times more new Centrino laptops launching today as there were laptops supporting mobile Pentium 4 at its debut.

Centrino consists of a Pentium M processor, 855 chipset, and PRO/Wireless 2100 network connection, which today supports 802.11b. Intel plans to offer compatibility for both 802.11a and 802.11b by June. The company says it's contemplating support for 802.11g by the end of the year.

The Pentium M is engineered for performance, not clock speed, Chandrasekher says. To better accommodate longer battery life and less heat, the processor is available in versions that run at 25 watts, 12 watts, or 7 watts. The Pentium M is available in four speeds, from 1.3 to 1.6 GHz, starting at $292 per processor for a base order of 1,000 processors. Later this year, Intel will sell a 1.7-GHz Pentium M.

To control power consumption and batter life, the new Pentium is a "lazy" processor, Chandrasekher says. This means the processor has a 1-Mbyte low-power L2 cache that turns off parts of the high-speed memory when it's not being used.

Dell Computer, IBM, and Toshiba introduced models that use all three of Centrino's components. Dell, which is seeing 30% year-to-year growth in sales of its Inspiron and Latitude laptops, introduced its Latitude D600 and D800 notebooks, starting at $1,399 and $1,699, respectively. The D family notebooks include integrated smart-card and Gigabit Ethernet capability, dual-band (2.4-GHz and 5-GHz) wireless antennas, and optional Bluetooth connectivity. Both the D600 and the D800 also include the Pentium M processor and Intel's PRO/Wireless 2100, which uses 802.11b. Dell is also offering its TrueMobile 1300 wireless connectivity for 802.11b or 802.11g or the TrueMobile 1400 wireless solution, which accommodates 802.11a/b/g.

IBM introduced Centrino-based ThinkPads including the T40, X31, and R40. The T40 notebook starts at $1,999, is 30% thinner than its T30 predecessor, and weighs 4.5 pounds. The ThinkPad X31, starting at $1,949, has battery configurations that offer up to 11 hours of battery life. The ThinkPad R40s similarly boast up to 10.3 hours of battery life by combining the system battery and battery options. The R40 models are also available with Intel's Centrino technology, 802.11 a/b wireless, or Cisco Aironet Wireless 802.11b. The ThinkPad R40e starts at $949.

Toshiba's computer systems group also used the Centrino launch to introduce a line of notebooks. The company's Satellite Pro M15, starting at $1,999, is the first Intel Centrino mobile-technology notebook that will be sold in retail stores. In addition, the new Satellite Pro M10, Tecra M1, Tecra S1, and Portege R100 notebooks range in price from $2,079 to $2,199.

Despite strong support from PC makers, Centrino faces a number of challenges. There are fewer than 4,000 "hot spots" worldwide that Centrino's components can use to wirelessly access networks, Chandrasekher says. Intel's objective, however, is to enable enough laptops to take advantage of 802.11 wireless technology that an increasing number of airports, hotels, and restaurants will be compelled to add hot spots. Research firm IDC predicts that there will be more than 118,000 hot spots by 2005.

Intel rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. on Wednesday also introduced its low-voltage mobile AMD Athlon XP-M processors, which will power the new Fujitsu LifeBook S2000 notebook, priced starting at $1,199. Although AMD's mobile processors have already shipped in previous Fujitsu LifeBook models as well as Compaq Evo notebooks, the Athlon XP-M is the first to be included in Fujitsu's S2000 line of notebooks that weighs less than 4 pounds, says John Morris, AMD's Athlon brand manager. Unlike Intel, AMD isn't providing the accompanying chipset or wireless connectivity.

"I think people are really ready to use this technology," Barrett said, adding that users who rely on laptops and other mobile-computing devices are looking for an alternative to hunting for phone jacks and broadband connections when they work away from their offices. "People want to use computers anywhere at any time in any configuration."