‘Intel Inside’ – This advertising campaign made Intel a household name along with the Intel Pentium processors. Intel is one of the world’s biggest and most valued semiconductor companies and the inventor of the x86 processors that is found in most of the personal computers. Founded in 1968, Intel also makes network interface controllers, motherboard chipsets, flash memory, integrated circuits, embedded processors and graphic chips and many other devices used in communication and computing.
Along with being a pioneer in the microprocessor segment, Intel has also ventured out in to various other domain and one of the latest being the smart phone industry. Intel began a pilot project with ZTE Corporation in 2011 producing Smartphone using the Intel Atom processor for the Chinese domestic market. Later in December 2011, Intel reorganized several of its business units to form a new mobile and communication group with its focus predominantly on wireless efforts, smart phones and tablets
Despites all the efforts to move its microprocessors in to the smart phones and tablets, the chip processor giant has failed to make its mark in the mobile market with disappointing performance results and revenue generation. Here is our analysis of what could possibly be taking away Intel’s charm in the mobile markets.
Underestimated battery saving
Battery life is one of the most important feature that one sees before buying a mobile phone. A good battery life can save the day for any mobile and smart phone manufacturer. Intel did not quite understand how important a good battery life would be in a mobile and the company fell short in this regard. The biggest issue with the Intel mobile chips is that they eat up a lot of battery. Intel has now realized this and is working aggressive on improving the battery life.
Played their cards wrong
With the boom in the smart phone industry when touch screen and tablets started taking off big time, Intel was still conventionally focused on net books in a hope that this technology will win the day but the company was wrong. The fate of the Intel mobile phones would be much different now had it played the right cards and been in the race of smart phones and tablets at the right time.
Moving slow
The mobile market is dynamic and changing ever too soon and Intel has to keep up with it and act fast. Device makers are launching new products and devices one after another and companies like Qualcomm, ARM and others are able to meet their demands for something new and exciting. Intel on the other hand, is acting way too slow in rolling out a plan and a roadmap to make a move in the mobile chip market.
Long Term Evolution support missing
One of the key features in a processor is the Long Term Evolution support which most of the chip manufacturing companies including the ARM based processors have been providing for years. Intel, even after producing mobile products for a couple of years has surprisingly not offered this feature. Intel now has promised to provide Long Term Evolution support later this year, but we are afraid it’s too late already.
Samsung producing its own chips
Samsung is one of the biggest players in the mobile industry selling more smart phones than any other company, and is also topping in the feature phone market. If the competition was not just enough, Samsung has started its own chip production no more relying on Intel’s chipsets.
Apple could be the savior
If Intel had worked with Apple to provide chips for its product, Intel would have been the winner in the mobile market. Instead, Apple is currently using ARM based chips manufactured by Samsung, adding to Intel’s trouble.
Summary
The road is definitely looking bleak for Intel in the mobile market irrespective of the massive branding they possess. With the right amount of collaboration in the future, the brand could turn it around. Would that be the case? Only time will tell.
