Whither Intel? The Master of Mobile Answers

While composing my prior blog post on Intel's suckerpunch from Nokia and Microsoft, I was also waiting for a reply from David "Dadi" Perlmutter, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Intel Architecture Group, for our Architects of Tomorrow follow-up discussion. Tonight, I received Dadi's replies. Regarding the question of what happened to Intel in the ultramobile space, you might find this part of our dialog interesting:

Me: We previously discussed Atom and handhelds at a time well before Moorestown. Then I attended the Texas Moorestown briefing and was under the impression that Atom storming the ultramobile market was imminent—but the storm has yet to materialize. Why?

1. Perlmutter: The handheld market requires more integration and testing that traditional PC markets before a product can be released.  This is related to the integration of all the components on the device itself (namely apps processor SOC, cellular modem, power management and the whole SW stack) as well as testing of the device within the carrier networks.  Having great performing silicon is just the first step in a long process.  We are currently working with several partners to integrate our silicon into their devices and the carrier networks.  Although this integration work requires a steep learning curve, the good news is that the learning is transferrable to our next generation.  So, even though our Medfield silicon is just sampling now, we should have a phone shipping with Medfield this year (2011).