Brian's Brain

As soon as the sale of Intel's XScale-based communication and application processor line to Marvell hit the street a few months back, several of us gathered around the EDN cyber-water cooler to brainstorm what the news might mean to Intel's handheld efforts going forward. My theory was that Intel wasn't giving up completely on the category but would revisit past history and, in competition with the ARM approach it formerly embraced, advocate a single-core, ultra-low voltage spin of its Core x86 architecture. Based on comments uttered earlier today by Anand Chandrasekher, Intel's Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Ultra Mobile Group, I'm not jettisoning my theory....but I am putting it in suspended animation for a few years.

Asked (at a mobility briefing for analysts and the press) the very question that the EDN gang had knocked about back in June, Chandrasekher didn't beat around the bush. Intel had no role going forward in 'simple' phones, he said. However, he believed there was a credibly-sized class of portable devices coming that would consume, process and generate data traversing on wireless networks....in that application, Intel silicon would play a key role.

My follow-up clarifying question to Chandrasekher asked him whether or not VoIP was one of the key data types he was envisioning for such a portable device; i.e. whether his earlier 'no role' comment referred only to cellular phones. His response was that while voice might be a secondary application for a UMPC, it wasn't a key reason to buy such a device; Intel's future focus was on products that are not phones first. And, in response to a subsequent (repeat) question from another audience member, Chandrasekher impatiently responded 'I told you before. Intel's not pursuing smartphones'.

Well, I guess we've got that straight! I still believe that Intel's going to 'play' in the wireless communications space, albeit not in strictly cellular terms. The definition of a 'phone' has expanded and blurred over the past few years, and these devices will become increasingly compute-centric in the future. I've previously written about my belief that wireless VoIP will by the end of the decade be a credible alternative to cellular telephony for many users and I'm sticking with my prediction. Sprint's recent embrace of WiMAX and T-Mobile's dual-mode cellular-plus-WiFi VoIP trials lend credence to my forecast. The Star Trek Communicator is coming, sooner than you think, and there's a good chance it'll have Intel Inside.