Intel has revelead it will be showcasing more than 10 tablets later this month at Taiwan’s Computex trande show—and those tablets will, of course, be built around the company’s new Oak Trail processors specially designed for mobile devices. And the company says these tablets from its partners are only the beginning: the Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) three dozen or more Intel-powered tablets are to be shipped throughout the year, according to Intel’s Asia-Pacific general manager Navin Shenoy.
Intel hopes the Oak Trail products will give it a serious foothold in a market that, so far, has been dominated by chip designed licensed from ARM Holdings, PLC. However, at an investor meeting in Santa Clara yesterday, analysts raised questions whether Intel’s push to get into smartphones and mobile devices is too little, too late: Intel has been saying it was going to be putting its chips in smartphones since 2009, and nothing has happened yet.
Industry reports have Intel’s Computex showcase focusing on solutions running Microsoft software: last year, Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer promised his company would be a major player in the tablet market once Intel’s Oak Trail processors were available, and that tablets ((or “slates”) running Windows 7 would quickly dominate the tablet market starting this year. OEMS working on Windows 7 tablets reportedly include Toshiba, Fujitsu, Acer, Asus, Sony, Lenovo, Dell, and Samsung.
