India can lead in wireless future: Intel
He said developers in India have an opportunity to lead the global IT industry if software developers in the country use converged computing and communications technologies.
"Last year at IDF we said Asia's developers would continue to play a role among the world's leading computing and communications developers," said Gelsinger to 1,400 attending the Intel Developer Forum in Mumbai Oct. 21.
"This year we're saying companies in Asia have the opportunity to lead how this industry designs and markets converged products to an increasingly global customer base."
From previous reports, Intel's belief is that computing and communications devices will converge so that the two capabilities will no longer be separate. The trend is best embodied today at Intel by Centrino, the company's Pentium M processor combined with wireless networking chips. The firm has staked a large part of its future growth on the increasing use of mobile, wireless-enabled computers.
In his address, Gelsinger described new technologies Intel plans to bring to market to further convergence.
"The wireless data technologies developers can use to build India's future are already here," said Gelsinger."India is now in a unique position to move ahead in the IT industry by deploying a state-of-the-art wireless infrastructure with ubiquitous Internet access, without being burdened by an existing expensive, non-scalable and wired infrastructure."
As a demonstration, Gelsinger wirelessly enabled a school and a coffee shop in Mumbai using WiMAX as the backhaul and Wi-Fi as the access technology. "Standards-based wireless technologies such as Wi-Fi and WiMAX show the benefits of volume-scale economics faster than any other access technology in the past," said Gelsinger.
Gelsinger also discussed Intel silicon built on the next generation 65-nm manufacturing process, saying the company is on track for introducing 65-nm products in 2005. This advanced silicon technology will pack more new features and functions onto smaller devices.
Developing global industry specifications through the Digital Home Working Group will be essential to realizing the vision of digital homes and offices that share content across multiple devices, Gelsinger noted. "The goal is to make digital homes and offices everywhere connect seamlessly," he said.
The Intel Developer Forum will offer 20 sessions of technical tracks covering the areas of desktop, mobile, enterprise, software and solutions, communications and wireless. Intel and a number of leading developers are also hosting eight technology lab sessions at IDF for attendees to work onsite, using the latest tools and technologies with support from experts in the lab.
ZDNet India reported from Mumbai.