Technofile: In the last week, Microsoft has tried to throw off its image as a lumbering, bloated software company with an attempt to catch some of the cool of the iPod.
But its vision of brick-sized portable PCs is more reminiscent of your dad dancing at a wedding than Apple's diminutive slice of hipness.
A fuss surrounded Microsoft's new push to become the pre-eminent choice for mobile computing. Duly, it set up a teaser website for its mysteriously titled "origami project".
Sleek graphics heralded a world of seamless mobile computing, where one minute we are online shopping, the next listening to the latest hot music downloads.
In fact, the "origami" was something of a paper tiger. The concept turned out to be a downsized Tablet PC, a touch-screen version of Windows XP which has failed to set the world on fire.
Unveiled at the CeBIT trade show in Germany last week, the "origami" codename was dropped for the duller sounding UMPC, or "Ultra-mobile PCs".
These are pitched somewhere between a mobile phone and a laptop and will feature a seven-inch wide LCD touch screen. Microsoft say the UMPC "will eventually become indispensable and as ubiquitous as mobile phones are today".
They won't replace laptops and mobiles, says Microsoft, but supplement users' existing devices, and evolve into a range of "lifestyle PCs".
Dutifully, hardware manufacturers launched their versions of this vision at CeBIT. Samsung's Q1 model looks likely to emerge this summer for about €1,000, but it will only have three-and-a-half hours of battery life, at best. Weighing only 779g and just 24.5mm deep, the Q1 has a seven-inch wide LCD touchscreen, a 40GB drive and 512MB of memory.
It is basically a full-blown Windows XP PC Tablet operating system with an Intel Celeron M or Pentium M processor. Some of its other features are Bluetooth and wireless internet, optional GPS navigation and a microphone.
Meanwhile, Elitegroup Computer Systems launched the H70 device, which is powered by a choice of Intel chips and also features a seven-inch LCD touchscreen display and includes both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi "grab and go" docking.
UMPCs are also designed to be "finger friendly" and the software is likely to be adapted to allow typing on a virtual keyboard. Microsoft reckons UMPCs will come in around $599-$999 (€497-€829) per unit.
But the fact that fast, conventional notebooks can be had for less money and perform for longer seems to have escaped the Redmond giant for the moment. In fact, at around twice the price of many laptops and with no keyboard, UMPCs don't stack up that well.
At the other end of the IT telescope, mobile phones are becoming ever more capable. Sony Ericsson recently launched M600 smartphone which will have 80MB of onboard memory - no slouch if you plan to carry around biggish files. Plus, a mobile turns on in a second, unlike even the fastest PCs, and will fit in your jacket pocket, unlike a UMPC.
In an effort to produce a portable computer which has the sexiness of the iPod and the usefulness of a full-blown PC, Microsoft seems to have come unstuck. The UMPC may just prove too bulky to be truly mobile, and too hobbled to replace the laptop.
A glimmer of hope for the UMPC could come from field workers like traffic wardens.
But it remains to be seen whether the general public will take to lugging around something the size of an 1980s mobile phone.
