Otellini said:
“The plus for Intel is that as they unify their operating systems we now have the ability for the first time: one, to have a designed-from-scratch, touch-enabled operating system for tablets that runs on Intel that we don’t have today. And secondly, we have the ability to put our lowest-power Intel processors running Windows 8, or “next-generation Windows,” into phones, because it’s the same OS stack. And I look at that as an upside opportunity for us.
It’s a weird statement, not least of which because Intel simply doesn’t have any chips right now that are suitable for mobile phones.
One thing to keep in mind, though, is that Otellini isn’t actually dropping a major bombshell here about Windows running on smartphones: Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made it very clear at this last CES that the next version of Windows will run on ARM as well as x86 CPUs.
No, what’s interesting here is really that Intel thinks they can push an x86 processor into smartphones when paired with Windows 8. That implies that Otellini believes that Windows 8 can reduce its power management and remove legacy cruft to a truly unbelievable extent. Either that or Intel has something entirely new up their sleeve which they are collaborating with Microsoft on. Time will tell, but my guess is this is the first serious indication that Intel is about to get into the smartphone SoC game.
Read more at ZDNet
