Converting schools to convertible notebooks. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Gateway is out with a newly designed smaller and lighter notebook PC…..that includes tablet capabilities. That means it has a touch screen…that swivels around and folds flat….enabling users to take handwritten notes and draw. The capability is built into the premium and business versions of Windows Vista. About how this new tablet differs from models Gateway has had out before, product manager Chris Bainer says….

"This is a 12 inch widescreen." How much does it weigh? "It starts at 4.5 pounds. And that's with a weight saver, which you can take out the optical drive and put in a weight saver, if you don't need an optical drive. Most of our customers need an optical drive, so that's why we included it. Especially in the education market. It's very important."

Gateway has been cultivating the education market once dominated by Apple as more and more schools, public and private, look to make technology part of the everyday classroom experience. That's one reason why a quarter of the notebooks sold by Gateway…in the consumer division… have tablet capability….

"We consider ourselves leaders in the convertible market. So this is our fourth generation convertible. So we've had a lot of learnings around that. We play strongly in education where convertibles are taking off. There's a lot of application software for schools to use tablets today."

The business version starts at 18 hundred 50 dollars. A new consumer configured model is priced starting at 15 hundred. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.