Consumer electronics key to Intel’s future strategy

COLLAB distinguished with the APDC / Siemens Innovation Award

Intel confirmed yesterday its strategic investment in the electronics market by detailing the product development plans for this area, which include mobile platforms and technologies, designed to work in a simple and easy way, together within the digital home.

Don MacDonald, general director of Digital Home Group, said during his communication at the Developer Forum that the digital home market will be worth $ 11 billion in 2008, assessing in turn the download of music in 1.5 billion and games online by 5.2 billion. «The best estimate we can have is that there are 1.6 billion homes on the planet, and we don’t intend to leave any behind,» he added.

Key point of Intel’s strategy is the integration of its new processor dual-core Pentium D – formerly known as Smithfield – in a wide range of devices. Dell has already developed a system based on these new chips and 22 other manufacturers, such as Sony, Acer and Lenovo, are expected to follow suit.

The MacDonald-managed unit is also preparing for the launch of the Anchor Creek PC platform, which uses both Pentium D and dual-core Pentium Extreme Edition 840, which will support hyperthreading and whose arrival on the market is scheduled for the second quarter of this year.

MacDonald even demonstrated a Pentium Extreme Edition system that allows one user to be watching high definition television, while there is a second user playing on the same PC. In terms of security, the system uses virtualization technology to run multiple operating systems in parts, and different areas of the PC can be assigned to different members of a family.

The general director of Intel’s Digital Home Group also illustrated his presentation with a concept desktop small in size – which generated some buzz among those present due to its similarity to the Apple mini Mac. This concept is based on Yonah technology, the successor dual-core Pentium M processor, which is expected to start shipping in early 2006.

In addition to the low-volume PC shown by MacDonald, Intel also announced a design concept for a desktop business that uses the manufacturer’s mobile technology.

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