Intel chieftain outlines broad tablet, smartphone blitz Intel CEO Paul Otellini sees his company moving into all levels of the tablet and handset markets, from Android and Windows 8 fondleslabs to smartphones, feature phones, and what he dubbed "value phones". "Our intention is to participate broadly in all three of those markets," said Otellini, referring to handsets, tablets, and …
Windows 8 is still ages away.
I have in fact ordered a Dell Latitude ST, a Windows 7 tablet with SSD - they actually warn you that the standaard-issue drive, 32 GB, is not big enough for, well, anything.
It will be the latest in a series of Windows tablet devices that I use because RSI means I can't use a keyboard for more than a minute or two. Instead I do my "typing" using a program called Fitaly. Speech recognition is possible as well.
Intel need a new architecture. Or else to develop ARM based solutions like Qualcomm and Texas do. They do still have an xscale comms processor (old) and ARM licence. They were arrogant selling the rest of xscale to Marvell.
They are still standing in the wet place in Egypt.
The x86 and x64 are stupid even on PC. The Itanium was obviously the wrong direction. They don't have to embrace ARM but clinging onto x86 and X64 is plain silly.
With the significant cost and battery life advantages of using ARM processors and the fact that Android is already up and running on these platforms is anyone really going to wait for a Intel Tablet / Smartphone?
ARM processors won't stand still, so by the time they sort out the power consumption problem ARM will have improved also and with Windows going to ARM architecture also there's really no USP for buying an intel tablet
I'm feeling a whole lot of 'what's he smoking'.
Combining the baseband and application processor is hardly a radical new idea, so playing catchup there.
Intel still haven't worked out how to build a really low power CPU, at least compared to their competition. So playing catchup from well behind there.
Intels history of building GPUs is embarassing and I think they probably underestimate how important getting that right is. We're well past the days when it had to decode 720p video just fast enough and into PS2 era rendering performance. Intel might manage the raw performance, what they've never managed is low power consumption or drivers and hardware that actually work.
Maybe they'll integrate someone else's GPU, I expect them to try to grab more of the licence revenue by using their own half assed designs though. They seem to have a real problem licensing 3rd party cores and splitting the profits with anyone else recently so they'll probably balls that up.
Oh well, I see some nice cheap devices in the near future, while they try to buy their way into the market and again when the unwanted stuff gets remaindered. Just don't expect to be playing games on them ;)
At CES I saw a report of a tablet application that looks at where various objects are located in front of the camera and animates them.
Thats 30 times a second, take image from camera, recognize objects and location, animate them, render the result on the tablet screen, on top of that is the interaction from the tablet screen.
How on earth are Intel going to compete with ARM chips that can already do that when they are working as hard as Intel to improve performance and cut power usage.
Give them 12 months and Intel may catch up with where ARM are now but that still leaves them a year behind.
By then servers will already be getting ARM systems.
Add to that M$ and their attempts to lock down hardware on ARM tablets and the great white hope of Windows 8 being a great seller becomes a great white elephant.
Intel need to do something new not play catchup or they could end up being another Nokia living on past glories till M$ send in a senior man to sort out the M$ takeover......
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
