After the U.S. PC manufacturer reported weak profits, Intel has expressed how it believes the PC is undergoing a transition to the tablet.
Paul Otellini's following responses suggest that Intel and its PC partners are targeting the tablet market with Windows 8 devices.
"We are in the midst of a radical transformation of the computing experience with the blurring of form factors and adoption of new user interfaces. It's no longer necessary to choose between a PC and a tablet. Convertibles and detachables combined with Windows 8 and touch provide a 2-for-1, no-compromise computing experience."
"In the first quarter we launch Haswell. The single largest generation-to-generation battery life improvement in Intel history...We have a line of sight into what our customers are designing around Haswell, which is this year's innovative Core [processor] product, and Broadwell, which is next year's. I've seen the prototypes of the industrial designs. They're really exciting products. Our customers have not had this level of performance in this kind of form factor before. 10-plus-inch [screen size] types of product are going to be more classic PC level of performance, enabled by these convertible, detachable form factors that will only get thinner when Haswell and Broadwell come on."
He continued on to discuss Intel's competition from ARM: "We've looked at the [new] A15 [ARM chip]. We know our own silicon in terms of Bay Trail and Clover Trail+ and we're very comfortable we can maintain a performance lead here. These devices are simply becoming very small computers, and that's what Intel is exceptional at."
"We are very interested in being a selected foundry manufacturer for certain customers. We don't see ourselves as a general-purpose foundry or competing with general-purpose foundries. We would not take business that enables a competitor. We have a crawl-walk-run strategy. We're still in the crawl stage."
Lenovo recently stressed that it believes the industry is not in a post-PC era. However, official figures suggest otherwise: during the October of 2012, tablet display shipments exceeded that of notebooks. Global tablet shipments are expected to surpass notebook shipments during 2013.
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While HP topped the global market for the PC industry during 2012, the year marked the first time the industry experienced a year-on-year decline during the holiday season.
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luc2k You didn't thank ctrl+c and ctrl+v. Shame on you!Reply
Does this mean they're throwing the ultrabook under the bus? -
the great randini lol the comments are better than the story, i amd keeps up the progress they have made. maybe by the time intel moves on from the diy market that amd will be ready to snatch up our business...but it will be a sad day...Reply -
bluestar2k11 When a tablet PC has the full unrestricted (Read: Not watered down versions) power of that years current generation high end hardware, with an OS and accessories of my choice (keyboards, gaming pads, mice, HDMI for external monitors etc..), then and only then will I say desktop PC's are dead or fading.Reply
Until then, tablets are great for the segments they fill, but they can't and won't replace desktops or even laptops anytime soon for the upper markets, esp enthusiasts and a lot of gamers. I could see maybe laptops doing the job before tablets are able to. -
shikamaru31789 It'll be a sad day if PC's ever actually die. Obi Wan will feel a great disturbance in the force, as if gaming technology suddenly reverted 6 or 7 years.Reply
At least we still have AMD. -
LORD_ORION What are you all worried about? High tech pros will have multi-core uber boxes running what used to be an entire network infrastructure under their desks.Reply -
TunaSoda Sure, the pc will die when they make a tablet with a full desktop os, a quad core cpu, 8gb of ram, and like a few TB of storage all able to plug into a mouse/monitor/keyboard/external drive/router/printer... :DReply -
kinggraves Intel also believes the future is in voice recognition, that we will all be shouting at our phones in public, so I wouldn't put too much faith in their opinion. They should pray people don't switch to tablets, because that is the weakest area of their approach. They're crawling whereas ARM is a marathon runner. And what if they do enjoy success and they cut into ARM and AMDs profits anymore? How far until they get hit with being considered a monopoly? I find his statement quite interesting; "We would not take business that enables a competitor." Is that stating that you'd rather enjoy a position with no competition than to be forced to have to truly compete, Otellini?Reply -
johnnyevil Tell you what: When the designers of all the power hungry, cpu/gpu intensive, high-heat-producing applications start MAKING those applications on a tablet FOR a tablet with all the problems attributed to a tiny, conceled device sorted out, I will get a tablet. I'm not talking about the silly little farmville games either. I'm talking about when I can pick up my tablet and turn on the current day version of a Crysis or Boarderlands style game. Until then, it's all silly talk.Reply