It's what they don't talk about
On Thursday morning exec keynotes include one from Senior VP Eric Kim on immersive TV and another from senior fellow and VP Justin Rattner, Intel's CTO. There will also purportedly be an update on the "Sodaville" Atom processor, and it's widely expected that the new Pine View Atom will likely be a rather hot topic of conversation.
There has also been speculation that Intel will be showing off an optical communications technique, using fiber optics to replace traditional cabling in computers. Some analysts have said they hope Intel will also use IDF as a platform to discuss lowering the price of its high-performance 250GB NAND Flash drives, as well as advances in the cycle lifespan of those drives.
Talking about his expectations for the event with HEXUS, Intel's director of PR, Bill Kircos noted, "I think this one will be pretty good, but it's hard to gauge for those who follow Intel so closely and already expect or have written about the news in advance. It's hard to please a diverse group of 500+ media and analysts."
Meanwhile, Jim McGregor from In-Stat told HEXUS, "the fun part of IDF is not what they talk about but what they don't talk about."
Having said that, however, McGregor doesn't believe we're in for any surprises this time around. "It's not an earth shattering year," he told us. "Intel is basically just executing to plan. They will be touting the new 32nm process technology and product lines based on the Nehalem architecture but we will still not see processors with integrated graphics until Q1."
"It doesn't look like we're going to get any real information on Larrabee either," McGregor continued, adding that WiMAX was also likely to be played down thanks to a separate WiMAX event on the east coast recently.
David Kanter of RealWorldTech told HEXUS he was personally excited about Nehalem-EX performance numbers coming out at the show, but said that from a consumer perspective, the must see topics were 32nm, Moorestown and Larrabee.
"For enterprise folks I'd replace Larrabee with SSDs and Nehalem-EX," he said. "I hope they will talk about Sandy Bridge - that would be hugely interesting, but I think they already have so much to communicate, that they may focus on that at the next IDF instead."
