Intel Again Promises Phones By Early 2012

If you'll remember around this time last month there was a sales call held by Intel with their investors discussing earnings. During that call there were a few words exchanged regarding Medfield, Intel's supposed phone processor. During that talk Intel CEO Paul Otellini noted that losing Nokia "took a lot of wind out of our sails" but that resources had been redeployed, Otellini noting, "I would be very disappointed if you didn't see Intel based phones 12 months from now." Today at an investor conference in Santa Clara, California, Otellini again confirmed the future of the phone sect of Intel.

For all the info you could possibly want to hold in your hands regarding Medfield, head to our gigantic [Medfield Portal] For the moment that the first Medfield phone seemed its realest, head back to Intel Medfield smartphone prototype gets brief preview. Look at he holds up that fabulous phone that we might never see but surely hope to! Is it a Nokia phone? Probably not. Is it an Android or MeeGo phone? This is much more likely a situation given reports from the past few months.

And what was confirmed today in California? Otellini noted that "You'll see the first Intel-based phones in the market in the first part of next year." Does this means we'll be guaranteed a new phone by 2012? Not exactly. Does it give us hope that Intel will be getting into this handset world for real? Sure, why not? And what would that mean for the rest of these chip magicians like Qualcomm, NVIDIA, and even Samsung? Will they have to work harder, or do they have nothing to worry about?

[via Rueters]