Playing catch-up
Intel's CFO Stacy Smith recently spoke to Bloomberg and revealed a bit more about the chip giant's plans for the mobile Internet space it is so keen to break into.
He revealed that a lot of the post-recession growth Intel has seen has been down to mobile devices and cloud infrastructure and expects that to continue. "Our hope is that over time we'll see robust growth in [mobile devices]," said Smith. "A great proof-point of this is the rapid growth from netbooks."
Asked about how Intel will go about accelerating its growth in this area, he said: "Our core strategy is to take the Intel architecture and use it to grow these markets that sit adjacent to the PC - so smartphones and consumer electronics.
"I think it's a different question of whether we're going to add to our capabilities through some strategic investments, and we've recently said that yes, we're looking at several strategic investments to add to our capabilities."
To illustrate the kind of thing Intel might have in mind, Smith pointed to the acquisition of embedded system software maker Wind River last year. Much of that acquisition got effectively donated to its open-source joint-venture with Nokia - MeeGo . We would expect the two companies to continue to invest in at as they try to play catch-up with Apple, Google and Microsoft.
Why not start with Palm, which would probably cost about the same as Wind River did?
