Mobile and Remote Computing Wireless Mobile Broadband Internet Access: It’s a profound understatement to say that Intel is hot on mobile computing. When it comes to on-the-go devices, the company touts its innovations in areas as diverse as people-friendly design and energy efficiency. Oh yeah, Intel is making noise about helping to weave the wireless Web that connects all these devices, too.

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by Geoff Koch

It’s a profound understatement to say that Intel is hot on mobile computing. When it comes to on-the-go devices, the company touts its innovations in areas as diverse as people-friendly design and energy efficiency. Oh yeah, Intel is making noise about helping to weave the wireless Web that connects all these devices, too.

A tech goliath with annual revenues in excess of $35 billion, Intel is probably one of the few companies capable of backing up most of its mobility-related marketing claims. Yet despite decades of microchip dominance, even Intel does not have unlimited resources and is still subject to the occasional strategic misstep.

Case in point: for years the company worked to build a viable business around its XScale processors, low power chips optimized for rich services over wireless networks. For years, Intel slowly collected design wins in devices such as the RIM Blackberry handheld, the Dell Axim family of Pocket PCs and several handheld devices from Palm and other vendors. However in June, Intel announced it was selling its XScale business to Marvell Technology Group to focus resources on its core x86 and server businesses.

“The sale will remove a business that struggled to take off and has weighed down the company’s overall financial performance, despite billions of dollars in investments,” wrote* Dawn Kawamoto and Tom Krazit in an June 27 article published on ZDNet News.

“At one point, Intel envisioned the communication market as a hedge against the expected saturation of the PC market, Kawamoto and Krazit continued. “But building chips for PCs is far different than building chips for communication networks.”

Here it’s important to point out that mobile computing and communication at Intel encompasses far more than XScale. It’s a mistake to interpret the Marvell announcement as anything more than a clear-eyed business decision to focus on core competencies and spend resources most efficiently. The fact is Intel continues to churn out mobile- and wireless-related pronouncements, nearly all of which seem to hold up tolerably well to scrutiny and are consistent with longstanding mobility goals at the company, such as reducing power consumption.

An example: in 2006, Intel offered a five-watt, ultra-low-voltage microprocessor for use in ultra-mobile PCs, or UMPCs. By 2008, the company will be shipping chips that consume ten times less power and are one-seventh the size of today’s processors.