Intel Bringing Tablet & Ultra-Thin Netbooks To Computex
Intel has promised to deliver its alternative to the iPad and other ARM-based tablets at Computex 2010, with Mooly Eden – vice president of the company's PC Client Group – taking to the stage at the Intel Investor Meeting to show off a new ultra-thin dual-core netbook reference design together with a tablet. According to Eden, Intel "are going to design silicon" for the tablet segment and will "actively participate" in the market.
"People ask me, are you serious about trying to participate in the tablet market? The answer is yes, we are going to have tablets ... stay tuned for Computex. We are going to design silicon for this category and we are going to actively participate in this category." Mooly Eden, VP PC Client Group, Intel
Exact details on the hardware Eden briefly flourished were in short supply, though he did confirm that the netbook reference design ran a dual-core Pineview processor. As for the tablet, that wasn't shown turned on but the exec did throw up a slide suggesting that Intel would not only support Windows OSes for such devices but MeeGo, Linux, Android and Chrome.
A key differentiator Intel have seized on is native multitasking abilities, and Eden was quick to point out the parallel processing abilities of the Intel silicon. "[Users]want it to multitask," he explained, "So, we deliver dual-core to be able to do several things in parallel ... We believe performance is relevant even in this category [because of the need to multitask]." You can watch Eden's keynote video here; meanwhile Computex starts in early June 2010.
