Intel is open to bringing Microsoft's Windows Phone OS tosmartphones based on its x86 chips, but only if it is commerciallyviable. Windows Phone's share of the smartphone market is underwhelming atthe moment, but the OS is worth watching, said Hermann Eul,president of Intel's Mobile Communications Group, during aninterview with the IDG News Service at the Computex trade show inTaiwan. Intel will consider putting Windows Phone OS on x86depending on how the OS does in the market in the future. 'We would be [interested] when we see that this market has a goodchance to return our money that we have invested into this,' Eulsaid.
'Our roadmap has devices that can support Windows also onphones. So we can do that. The hooks for doing that [are] there.' Intel is just getting started in the smartphone market. The firstsmartphones with Intel processors came out earlier this year, withLava International releasing the Xolo X900 smartphone in India,followed by Orange releasing the San Diego in the U.K and Lenovolaunching the LePhone K800 in China.
Other smartphones with Intelchips will come from Motorola later this year, while ZTE is alsoscheduled to release an Intel-based handset. The smartphones usesingle-core Atom processors code-named Medfield. A majority of the smartphones based on Intel chips currently runGoogle's Android OS, and the chips also support the Linux-basedTizen OS. Intel merged its previous Meego OS into Tizen, which isalso backed by Samsung. 'The current trend of statistics is pretty clear, Android isgaining the largest share of the market so that is where the moneyis,' Eul said.
'We support Tizen as well, we haven't announced anyproduct on this, but being in the Tizen alliance it's clear we arealso engaged there.' Intel's main smartphone competitor is ARM, whose processors go intomost handsets. There were questions on whether Intel would matchARM on power consumption, but Eul said the response to Intel'ssmartphones has exceeded expectations. 'We see substantial interest in our platforms in particular aftercustomers really see the devices in the market and see Intel isreally there. With that all the badmouthing on power consumption,and cannot do it, and so on is put to rest,' Eul said. Later this year, Intel will release a dual-core Atom Z2580processor with 3G, 4G and LTE capabilities as a follow up to thefirst Z2460 smartphone chip.
Next year Intel will release alow-power Atom chip code-named Merrifield with a new processordesign and graphics core for high-performance smartphones. The chipwill be made using the 22-nanometer process. For low-end smartphones, next year Intel will release an integratedchip made using the 22nm production process. The chip will succeedthe current Atom Z2000 processor, which runs at 1GHz but is not yetbeing used in smartphones. By 2014, Intel will release chips madeusing the 14nm process, though Intel officials declined to sharefurther chip details.
Agam Shah covers PCs, tablets, servers, chips and semiconductorsfor IDG News Service. Follow Agam on Twitter at @agamsh . Agam's e-mail address is agam_shah@idg.com.
