Intel and Nokia's Powerful Collaboration

This is really massive news that will end up having a huge impact on the gaming devices that people use.

Intel (INTC) are the largest manufacturer of processing power in the world. With 84,000 employees and a turnover of $37 billion they have immense power and influence. Their Atom processor is the current standard for netbooks.

Nokia (NOK) is the largest mobile phone manufacturer in the world. With 124,000 employees and a turnover of $51 billion, they are even bigger and more powerful. They make 37% of all the world’s mobile phones.

Where they have common interest is mobile electronic devices, such as netbooks and smartphones that are the fastest growing gaming devices at the moment, and the devices that evolve from them.

It is important to realise that smartphones and netbooks are the same thing, they only differ in form factor. Also, in the white hot heat of competition, they are developing very rapidly towards Linux driven, touch screen devices with the power of a desktop computer of just a few years ago.

So we can expect a pooling of not only hardware from these two companies, but also of software. This has the potential power to take the market on in a significant way. However there are two young upstarts that are currently making all the waves in this market, Apple with iPhone (AAPL) and Google with Android (GOOG). The competition is fierce. And for gamers Nokia have the legacy of nGage to get over.

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Comments

[Tech_analyst:]

Intel processor for Smartphone is not ever close to ARM-based technology, power consumption is way high, mobile integration is not easy, connectivity BT+FM+WIFI is not roll out yet. Nok and Intel discussion is just in level of talk and takes many years may be 5 years from today till Intel processor get into a power efficient Smartphone market.

Jun 25 11:34 AM

[experienced:]

As pointed out in a recent EETimes article, there was very little substance or specifics in the Intel-Nokia announcement. Intel does not have a good record trying to get into the wireless business, and in fact sold a major part of its assets in that area to Marvell. Nokia needs something more substantial than its wholly owned Symbian system, which can't deliver on many applications for smartbooks or netbooks (which are not the same).

The key issue is whether the Nokia-Intel combination can produce wireless devices that have low power requirements to compete with the Qualcomm SnapDragon chip, which is based on a lower power ARM processor. Unless one is simply playing games, a netbook or smartbook need to be on continuously, just the way a handset remains on, with sufficient battery power to make it through at least one day's usage. Intel's Atom chip certainly isn't there yet, though it might be in a few years. Meantime, chips from Qualcomm and others can fill the bill.

Jun 25 12:39 PM

[Economyst:]

This is a hardware alliance when what is driving the mobile space at the moment is software and services.

Jun 25 03:16 PM