Google, Intel Announce Partnership For Android Phones

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Intel Corp and Google Inc launched a development partnership on Tuesday, the latest effort by the world's dominant maker of PC microprocessors to break into the booming smartphone market.

The two companies will work together to optimize future versions of Google's Android mobile software for Intel's "Atom" processors, hoping to speed the development and time-to-market of future Intel-powered smartphones.

The move could jump-start Intel's efforts to expand into the market for mobile phones and touchscreen tablet devices at a time when sales of PCs are slowing.

The first Android phones featuring Google chips should be available in the first half of 2012, Intel executives said at the company's annual developer conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.

Intel is allying itself with one of the biggest players in the mobile industry. In August, Google announced plans to acquire mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.

And Android software, which Google licenses free to manufacturers, is currently the most popular smartphone software, ahead of Apple's iOS as well as software by Microsoft and Research in Motion.

While Intel is the world's No. 1 maker of PC microprocessors, it has struggled to gain a foothold in the new class of mobile gadgets such as smartphones and tablets.

Today's crop of smartphones, from the iPhone to devices based on Android software, use chips from companies like Texas Instruments and Samsung which in turn license technology from ARM Holdings.

Those chips are considered more power efficient than Intel's -- a key factor for handheld, battery-powered devices.

STILL EARLY DAYS

But Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini, speaking at the conference, said the smartphone market is still in its early stages.

"The smartphone business is not established in terms of the ultimate shake-out of who's going to win and who is going to lose," Otellini said during a chat with reporters following his keynote speech.

"You saw what happened in terms of how fast Android took share from Apple," he said. "So good products on good platforms can really still make a big difference in this industry."

While Android technically already could support Intel chips, the new partnership will make it much easier for a manufacturer to bring an Intel-based Android phone to market.

Until now, it has been up to phone manufacturers to make their Android phones compatible with Intel chips, whereas future versions of the Android software will work with Intel chips right out of the gate, and will be optimized to take advantage of Intel's technology.

"It's really about Google saying that Intel is going to be a first-class citizen in the Android ecosystem," said David Kanter, an analyst with Real World Technologies.

But he added that Intel still needs to win over hardware makers if it hopes to succeed in the smartphone market.

Otellini also again highlighted his confidence in the new "ultrabook" computing market during Tuesday's speech, saying the lighter, sleeker laptops should hit store shelves starting this holiday season.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Richard Chang)
Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions

Comments

[JudKast]

03:43 AM on 11/04/2011

Technology is in hyper-inflation and at a stage in life that its far too encompassing and evolving that even the most savvy and well footed person cannot keep up with. This is scary and too complex > JUST GIVE ME BACK THE ROTARY PHONE AND LOW COST OF OPERATION AND THIS ARCHAIC PERSON WILL BE HAPPY AND MORE COST EFFICIENT.

[exPatPatti]

08:01 AM on 09/15/2011

Scary.

[becky bradshaw]

09:16 AM on 09/14/2011

Intel has been "breaking into the cellphone business for a decade. Most industry observers thought that Intel would eventually dominate the cellphone like they have dominated the PC. It has not happened. Mr. Otellini's statement "the smartphone business is not established in terms of the ultimate shake-out of who's going to win and who is going to lose," is unfortunately investor-speak. Otellini has a problem, the future is hand-held devices, and Intel (and AMD) are outsiders looking in.

Note that Otellini never mentions the extensive past work with Nokia, and the MeeGo cellphone operating system. Never heard of it? Not surprising. Intel and Nokia have actually partnered on three different projects, and a few phones were actually produced, but only prototypes made it to the U.S.

Reference: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jun2009/tc20090623_066569.htm

[Sunzuki]

04:46 PM on 09/13/2011

With all the litigation that Google and the Android handset makers are involved in good luck keeping Android alive. It just won't be competitive when it will cost the handset manufacturers more to license Android than it will to license WP7.

[Gurinder Dhillon]

08:13 AM on 09/14/2011

Litigation and frivolous lawsuits from the competition is just the cost of success, if anything is going to have trouble competing to stay alive its Apple and its pay per song or app paradigm is doomed to fail, first off all music is going to be free in 20 years, and we'll look back at these years in disbelief at how wasteful we used to be, 99 cennts a song is ridiculous and history will prove me right.

[Sunzuki]

10:54 AM on 09/14/2011

Frivolous lawsuits? Right so theoretically if I copy their Page Rank software and use it to create my own search engine, you would be defending me here? Think not.

You can't just allegedly steal peoples patents and not expect lawsuits.

[becky bradshaw]

09:36 AM on 09/14/2011

Choose your winner. Apple will always be a player, but their days as the dominant smartphone are already over. Google, and Android, are the likely winner. They have stockpiled a significant amount of ammunition for litigation with the Motorola purchase. Motorola invented the cellphone.

Litigation expense are an unfortunate reality in the world, and especially the U.S. There millions of lawyers with nothing better to do than troll the world looking for an excuse to litigate. Tort reform, in the form used to date, is not the answer. It throws the baby out with the bathwater.

Somehow we need to reduce the number of licensed lawyers by 90%.

[macrocosm]

01:51 PM on 09/14/2011

just cap their pay structures to logical amounts... lol that would fix it, then only people passionate about justice and law will get in.

[DomainDiva]

04:46 PM on 09/13/2011

Apple is a cult...Google is the Borg...you will be assimilated!

[jabailo]

03:46 PM on 09/13/2011

Wait..urp...they bought Motorola for ... IP ... not to compete with OEMs

Rite?

[JuanGuapo]

03:11 PM on 09/13/2011

What's that old saying....Two turkeys don't make an eagle?

[DomainDiva]

04:47 PM on 09/13/2011

I have never heard that before but it's a good one!

[No Yards]

08:35 AM on 09/14/2011

The largest chip maker and the largest mobile OS maker teaming up? That's what you call 2 "Turkeys"?

I just hope they don't put Apple out of business, we need some competition in the mobile handset sector so the prices can become more reasonable.

[becky bradshaw]

07:03 PM on 09/14/2011

Intel has been predicted to dominate the mobile microprocessor market for many years. When Intel first teamed with Nokia, the Finnish company was the largest cellphone company (Doesn't it seem that the iPhone was introduced 20 years ago (actually 2007?)).

Perhaps Intel has been dominant in the PC space only because of market history?