Intel is working with suppliers and manufacturers to bring down production cost for ultrabooks and make the price of the thin and light notebooks lower than Apple's MacBooks and various tablet PCs.

The plan is to slash up to $300 from the price of Acer and Asus models currently pegged at $900 to $1,000. Intel said the $700 price goal, if achieved, will make ultrabooks more competitive than MacBook Pro, whose least expensive model sells for $1,000.

According to eWeek.com, Navin Shenoy, vice president of sales and marketing and general manager for the Asia-Pacific region for Intel, told Reuters that company wants to meet its goal of having ultrabooks account for 40 percent of all notebooks shipped by the end of 2012. Driving the prices of ultrabooks down will make this possible but Shenoy said this will require greater cooperation from the various players in the supply chain, from suppliers to manufacturers.

"It takes time to engineer a cost down. ... More work needs to happen in the ecosystem. Even if we're giving the chips away for free, we couldn't hit the price point we want to hit if we don't work with the rest of the industry," Shenoy said, according to Reuters.

Intel has a $300 million fund to help software and hardware developers create improved ultrabooks that are less than an inch thick and having tablet advantages such as long battery life, continuous online capability and touchscreens.