Intel chief executive Paul Otellini said today during an earnings call that he is skeptical that ARM chip vendors will be able to muscle in on Intel&'s turf on the Windows PC.
Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer said at the Consumer Electronics Show last week that a future version of Windows will run on ARM chips for the first time, allowing vendors such as Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments to compete directly with Intel for the first time on PC microprocessor designs.
But Otellini said there are pluses and minuses for Intel. He said that it will be good that Microsoft will have a single operating system that can run across phones, tablets and PCs. That creates more opportunity for Intel&'s low-power and high-performance chips to get into a lot more systems. On the other hand, Otellini acknowledged that a possible negative for Intel is that ARM chips could be used in Windows PCs for the first time.
Again, Otellini said he was skeptical because users will expect legacy support, meaning they will want to run older applications on all Windows devices. He also said that users are used to higher levels of performance on Windows computers. Otellini&'s response was the first time he has addressed the issue of competition with ARM chip vendors.
Rivals such as Nvidia have taken heart that they will now be able to attack Intel&'s big profit center in its near-monopoly on Windows PCs.
[image credit: cheezburger.com]
Next Story: Video game sales were down 6 percent in 2010 Previous Story: Intel will go hog wild spending $9B on chip factories in 2011
Print Email Twitter Facebook Google Buzz LinkedIn Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Delicious Google More&8230'
Companies: Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments
People: Paul Otellini
Companies: Intel, Microsoft, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments
People: Paul Otellini
Dean is lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He covers video games, security, chips and a variety of other subjects. Dean previously worked at the San Jose Mercury News, the Wall Street Journal, the Red Herring, the Los Angeles Times, the Orange County Register and the Dallas Times Herald. He is the author of two books, Opening the Xbox and the Xbox 360 Uncloaked. Follow him on Twitter at @deantak, and follow VentureBeat on Twitter at @venturebeat.
VentureBeat has new weekly email newsletters. Stay on top of the news, and don't miss a beat.
Discuss Add this link to... Bury
Comments