New Delhi: At last, there is 'Intel Inside' in a smartphone. Intel entered the smartphone market on Thursday, launching Xolo X900 in partnership with India's Lava Mobiles. The company, dubbed 'chipzill', makes processors that power over 80% computers in the world.
Xolo X900 is the world's first Android phone powered by an Intel processor and represents the chip manufacturer's first attempt to take on ARM Holdings, a British firm that makes technology, powering virtually all smartphone and tablets in the world.
The launch of Xolo X900 is a significant moment for both Lava and Intel. While Lava, which is better known for its budget phones, is trying to enter the premium segment, for Intel it's the beginning of the company's new future where traditional computers may not matter much. "The boundaries of personal computing are expanding. Xolo X900 showcases rich capabilities of Intel computing and highlights possibilities of what's still to come," said Mike Bell, Intel's corporate V-P.
The Xolo X900 is based on Intel's reference design and features Atom processor (Z2460) running at 1.6Ghz. It will be available in the market from April 23 at Rs 22,000.
"We know that we can't be big overnight but we believe that in Xolo X900 we have a smartphone that is faster compared to the competition due to Intel processor," said Vishal Sehgal, director of Lava International. Lower-priced Xolo phones would come in future and Xolo owners will get premium support, including onsite warranty, a first for phones in India, Sehgal added.
Despite smartphones and tablets becoming a force to reckon with, so far Intel has failed to get a foothold in the market. Patrick Moorhead, who recently started his consulting firm Moor Insights & Strategy after decade-long stint with AMD, Intel's lead rival, said the 'chipzilla' has a good chance of success.
"I believe Intel can attain at least 10-20% unit share in smartphones and 50% unit share in tablets costing $299 and above by 2014," said Moorhead. "Medfield (the processor that powers Xolo X900) is very competitive on delivering a good experience at low power and will get even more competitive as Intel moves to 22nm and new architectures. At 14nm, the company will be aforce to reckon with."
Traditionally, Intel has held a massive advantage in manufacturing of silicon chip and has used it to the good effect in traditional computer market. This is something Prashanth Adiraju, director for new platforms at Intel (South Asia) highlighted. "Unlike competition (read ARM) we design, optimize and manufacture the complete chip. This is our competitive advantage," he said.
The world of technology is in state of flux. Last year, Microsoft had announced that Windows 8 would run on ARM processors, ending the decades-old Microsoft-Intel partnership, often dubbed Wintel by analysts. On the same day, Intel announced it would partner with Google to bring Android to X86 platform, something that set in motion the process which led to the launch of Xolo X900
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