Finally the little storm that the Apple's Macbook Air managed to stir up has settled, and we can now use the logic processing unit of our brain to put things into perspective.

When first pulled out of the envelope, it surely got everyone drooling, but soon the techies returned to their senses and noticed one shortcoming after another. As my colleague rightly pointed out in his review, the Macbook Air ends up being a product with more flaunt value than one with practical usage. The list of complaints is endless - low on processing power, lack of optical drive and Ethernet port, just one USB port and so on. I agree that the Macbook Air isn't a great product; however I still believe that it is a step in the right direction.

The way I see it, Macbook Air is not a product for all, but then, neither was the iPod when it was first launched. But it did set a trend, a benchmark for the competition to scale and surpass. Similarly, when the first iPod Nano was out, there were obvious comparisons with its big brother and everyone pointed at things that it could not do rather than the things it could manage in that footprint. Cut to the present, the Nano can almost do it all retaining its sleek figure. The result - a majority of consumers have started preferring it over its big brother. Likewise, I expect the Macbook Air to mature and go the Nano way with its future iterations.

Apple products -- some love them, some hate them; but one thing a majority of the manufacturers love to do is ape them. So expect a lot of renowned brands to come up with their slim and super-slim laptops over the next few months, which may not be such a bad thing after all!

Over the past couple of years, the laptop weight and sizes have been growing frantically (with the exception of XPS and a handful few). A majority of them look more like desktop replacements rather than laptops. To make matters worse, some of our popular film stars have been advertising 17-inch screens on laptops like that's the best thing to have happened to portable computing, when even a "Paanchvi Pass" guy can tell you that laptops need to be compact and portable. About time these so called laptops hit the gym.

The ultra-portability trend is catching up. The success of the Asus EeePC, despite its limited functionality (but a fairly sensible price tag as opposed to the Air) adds weight to the observation. The Macbook Air will act as a catalyst in speeding up the slimming process as every other manufacturer will strive to go one up on the Apple gizmo by giving more functionality and processing power in a similar foot print. When there are a number of such products in the market, they will automatically shed their 'lifestyle' tag, and then the price tag will take care of itself. In the end, it all augers well for the consumer.

At times, people need to be pushed out of their comfort zones to make them scale higher ground. That may happen through inspiration or intimidation or competition. The bottom line is to get the best out of an individual or a product and go beyond the ordinary.