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Intel keen for tablets to run Windows, for good reason

Newsflash - Intel is keen for tablet devices to run Windows.
Written by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributing Writer

Newsflash - Intel is keen for tablet devices to run Windows.

Intel CEO Paul Otellini seems to see Apple's vision of what a tablet should be as being flawed. Here's what Otellini had to say at yesterday's third quarter earnings conference call:

Tablets are more performance sensitive and intensive devices than phones are. The kinds of applications people do on tablets will require that kind of compute capability—the ability to do real full multi-tasking. For many people particularly enterprise evaluations for tablets, Windows compatibility is very important. We are the only architecture that runs all the major—all but one of the major tablet operating systems. We don’t yet run on Apple. I think we’re in a pretty good space.

Now, Intel is in the chip business, and the more powerful the chip, the more money Intel makes. So it makes sense that Intel is pushing the idea that tablets need to be behemoths. One way to guarantee that tablets will need powerful chips is to push for them to be Windows-based devices.

Intel also has an eye on the future, integrating Infineon technology with Atom processors. This way Intel could have a very big foothold in the tablet market. This is a few years away though.

It all makes sense.

Well, it all makes sense except for the bit where Apple has managed to sell millions of tablets that aren't Windows-based, and don't use Intel chips. Apple has done this without any betting on future convergence. While companies like Intel and Microsoft have spent a lot of time talking about tablets and been busy outlining future plans, Apple got on and made a tablet. A tablet that people actually want.

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