Pankaj Kedia is the director, Global Ecosystem Programs, Mobile Internet Devices at Intel Corporation. The information here is from a telephone interview I made on 23rd Dec.
The ‘journey continues’ says Pankaj, referring to the progress made in the MID market this year and the steps that will be taken to further it in 2009. About 15 Menlow based devices were launched. There are 13 Moblin distribution partners ranging from Novell to Canonical. 3 of these distributors (Canonical, Asianux and WindRiver) are working on Moblin. There are over 7000 developers are involved in the Moblin ecosystem. That’s not bad for year one although many of us in the western world are still asking where the devices are! Distribution for the 15 devices remains tight with many western countries not having direct access at all to a Menlow based device.
Lluon Mobbit, Viliv S5, UMID, USI MID-160 and Digifriends MIDs. Will we see these at CES? Perhaps under a well-known brand?
According to Intel, we can expect some interesting products during 2009 though. When asked about CES launches, Pankaj could only tell us there there may be a ‘couple’ of new devices with ‘good names’ and ‘good ID’ (design.) This is, of course, enough to get us excited but experience tells us that it could be a while before the devices reach consumers. We hope we’re wrong! Moorestown is still on track for a ‘launch before 2010’ and, as would seem sensible, Menlow will continue to run as a product alongside Moorestown for the time being. Considering that Moorestown is aiming for smartphone form factors and that, you won’t see XP running on it due to a lack of PCI bus [Unconfirmed. Info from other sources.] it makes sense. Early examples of devices being built on the Menlow platform are getting better and with XP-devices now being launched, it looks like the options for the productivity users will improve.
I asked Pankaj about ARM and how Intel see’s this. It ‘validates the category’ and ‘validates the customers’ and they ‘welcome competitors.’ Unsurprisingly, he didn’t elaborate on that from saying that Intel has ‘done well’ with computers in the past!
Back to CES then. Expect a range of devices on the Intel booth including MIDs and netbooks with devices targeted at entertainment, communication, navigation and productivity. There will be an ‘Atom Zone’ and as I mentioned above, a ‘couple’ of MID product announcements. You can also expect to see Moblin-related ISVs present highlighting the ongoing work that is being done on the operating system by Intel and it’s partners. Also watch out for keynotes by the Intel chairman, Craig Barrett and sessions including Anand Chandrasekher, Sean Maloney and Eric Kim.
Expect more about Moorestown at IDF in Beijing and lets hope that confidence in the sector builds during the exhibition season in Q1 and Q2 2009. As Pankaj said, the journey continues!
Thanks to Pankaj and Intel for the telephone interview.
