Intel Calls for Mobile Liberation with Centrino Launch

By Suzanne Deffree -- 3/12/2003

NEW YORK CITY -- What do you get when you give Anand Chandrasekhar a clever, mix in McDonald's endorsements and blast songs from the Rembrandts in one of New York's famed punk-rock halls? Intel Corp.'s Centrino launch.

Centrino -- Intel's mobile technology platform for notebook PCs, which  includes wireless connectivity -- has been discussed for months. After much hype, today finally sees its official launch.

The event was kicked off today with a speech from The Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell, who compared the mobile platform to other inventions that have caused "tipping moments" or rapid, massive change to a segment or culture, such as the transistor radio, microwave oven and the fall of the Berlin wall. 

Gladwell told industry specialist seated in swizzle chairs on the Hammerstein Ballroom's stage floor, usually used for mosh pit purposes, that Centrino may be a tipping point that brings a true mobile revolution to PC users.

"I'm not going to talk about Centrino, there are many other people here who can do that better than I," Gladwell said. "I simply want to raise the possibility that this product may be every bit as important as the transistor radio and microwave. Now this brings us to a bold point, because this is not something that reinvents the personal computer. But I'm not sure that's the point. Because the microwave didn't reinvent cooking and the transistor didn't reinvent the radio. What those were, were innovations that improved existing technology in a way that answered a fundamental consumer need.

"I think it's obvious that consumers want to be liberated from the wall. But for that liberation, that desire, to be a tipping point, that liberation has to be real."

Gladwell's remarks were reiterated throughout the hour-long keynote presentation today with remarks from Intel CEO Craig Barrett and Anand Chandrasekhar, VP and general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms group, who, as part of his presentation on Centrino's wireless capabilities, took a meat clever to an IBM laptop's broadband cord. To the audience's amusement, Chandrasekhar's unsuccessfully attempted to butcher the connection while an Intel ad was running, only cutting the cord after the streaming video had stopped.

Indeed, the event was more fun and games than Intel attendees are accustom to. For its biggest party since the Pentium launch nearly a decade ago, Intel has gone all out, spending $300 million on its marketing push and coordinating its presentation to pop music while flashing hype words suggesting Gladwell's liberation, like unwired, unstressed, untangled and unburdened.

"It was a little flasher than a typical Intel event," said Steve Kleynhans, Meta Group VP. "It's more polished, I think they are learning how to hit the market. They kept the comments short and to the point. The demos were well designed; the videos were good. I think it had a good feel to it."

But Barrett did get his corporate message across; that wireless is the next major change and that Intel and its partners will lead the change.

"This is really, I think, after 20 years of talking about it the most tangible evidence of computing and communication," Barrett said. "This is not just the industry hyping it, this is an issue of the end user, the people who use the technology, demanding the technology and the infrastructure coming together to meet that demand.

"If you look at what's happening, I think there are three things that are important given the usage of the technology," Barrett continued. "One is there has to be a desire, a wanting from the individuals to use the technology. There has to be a device or capability to do so. And there has to be a deployment of that technology," he said, noting the transistor radio's history and its ability to "unwire" its users. "We want to do that with Centrino mobile technology. We want to take that technology, its brand and its brand promise and give that to the common user to use that technology anyplace, any time, anywhere. Now obviously, Intel doesn't do that by itself. Intel has to deal with a large number of people involved."

Among the people IBM is working with include hot-spot hoster T-Mobile USA, which deals with Starbucks and Borders bookstores; Commeta Networks, an open access Wi-Fi company in which it is invested, manufactures IBM and Hewlett-Packard, and fast-food giant McDonald's, which began rolling out Centrino-based hot-spots today.

"Now you get bits with your bite," quipped Mats Leverhausen, president of McDonald's business development group.

The Centrino "bits" get consumed at less power than a Pentium 4 system, according to Chandrasekhar, who claimed that Centrino scores up to 15 percent to 20 percent more performance and 80 percent more battery life than a comparable P4 system. He further said that Centrino sees 60 percent more performance and 30 percent more battery life compared to a P3. The Centrino platform is based on Intel's Pentium-M mobile processor and a new chipset, code-named Calexico.

"Break through performance and breakthrough battery life," Chandrasekhar said. "We needed silicon innovation, system innovation and partnerships to enable ecosystems that solutions are deployed, so that consumers can take advantage of these systems. Clearly, there's a viral phenomenon under way on a global basis to accelerate the growth of wireless."

Hints of the Future

Centrino, based on 802.11b, Intel said, is where Wi-Fi is at for now. The company has received some criticism by rivals for not embracing 802.11g technology, which features faster speeds.

"[802.11b is] where most of the demand is today and where it is stable. We will bring out a dual band a/b in the near future timeframe and after the 802.11g becomes accepted we will bring out the -g product, as well," Chandrasekhar said. Upgrading to -g will be determined by manufacturers, he added.

Chandrasekhar was backed by Intel partner IBM, which uses Centrino for its -b technology and complements that with its own a/b Pentium-M based core.

"-g is a technology that is pre-standard. So there are some folks announcing today products that have -g in it. That's an interesting exercise, I'm very concerned about compatibility problems [among different companies' -g products]," said Peter Hortensius, general manager of IBM's Think Offerings PC division. "In the fall sometime is when you could reasonably begin to see this in an environment where you're not concerned about compatibility."

Intel expects Centrino to take off in the first half of 2003, continuing to ramp in the second half. According to Chandrasekhar, the company's expectations are for Centrino to represent 80 percent of its Pentium performance-brand sales to the business segment and in excess of 20 percent of its consumer business.

Intel further hinted that the 90nm edition will feature updates in the second half of the year. "We will be implementing new features in the 90nm version of the processors themselves. I will reserve that for a later event, so that I can have you guys come back and listen to me one more time," Chandrasekhar joked, refusing to give details.

Barrett further hinted that Hyper Threading (HT) will become apparent in Centrino. "Eventually, we'll get Hyper Threading into the mobile lineup and Centrino family. We're not ready to announce when and what products we intend to bring HT technology into that product line for," he said.

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Betty Kane contributed to this article.

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