HP plans solid-state drives in future business laptops
(InfoWorld) - Hewlett-Packard plans to offer solid-state drives (SSDs) as an option in all professional series laptop PCs starting from next month because the drives operate faster, conserve battery life, and are more durable than hard disk drives.
Context & Ripple Effects
Solid-state drives have been a niche curiosity until this year; the inflection came in June 2007 when [[a:1178844|Samsung began mass-producing the industry's first 1.8-inch, 64GB SSD aimed specifically at notebook PCs]], solving the supply problem that had kept flash storage out of mainstream machines.
HP is now the first major commercial-PC vendor to answer that supply signal at scale: from October 2007 the company will make SSDs an option on every professional-series laptop, citing faster operation, better battery life, and greater durability than spinning hard disks.
First-order effects
- Corporate buyers configuring HP business laptops from next month get flash storage as a line-item choice, paying an SSD premium in exchange for battery life and drop-resistance that matter most in mobile fleets.
- Samsung's notebook-targeted SSD line gains its first flagship OEM design win, validating the 64GB capacity point HP is buying against.
Second-order effects
- Dell and Lenovo face immediate pressure to match the option across their own professional lines or cede the durability-and-battery argument in enterprise refresh pitches.
- Notebook hard-drive makers see their highest-margin segment — premium business portables where buyers pay for reliability — exposed for the first time to NAND substitution, while NAND suppliers gain a second demand engine beyond consumer electronics.
Third-order effects
- If HP's move normalizes SSD options, laptop storage splits structurally into two tracks — flash for mobility-focused machines, rotating disks for capacity-driven ones — tying PC shipment cycles to NAND fab output.
- Enterprise procurement criteria begin shifting from price-per-gigabyte toward battery life and failure rates, metrics where disk vendors start every comparison behind.
The trend: Notebook storage is beginning its shift from rotating platters to NAND flash as mass production makes SSDs an orderable option rather than an engineering showcase.