Phone Borneo

Nokia's move to the Windows Telephone OS took the "wind" out of doable volume sales of Intel smartphone chips this year, but the chip maker has moved on, Intel CEO Paul Otellini said this week.

Intel is now redirecting resources to recruit other wireless carriers and telephone makers to adopt its upcoming low-power Atom smartphone chip code-named Medfield, Otellini said on a conference call Tuesday.

Intel was hoping to see smartphones with its chips starting in the second half this year. Otellini mentioned he would be disappointed if Intel-based phones had been not obtainable in 12 months. He did not comment on the smartphone   companies Intel was pursuing, but analysts on Wednesday said that the chip maker could be pursuing smaller regional phone makers, and maybe bigger telephone makers such as LG.

Intel has had no success so far in the smartphone space. The enterprise currently provides a low-power Atom smartphone chip code-named Moorestown, which has identified no adopters. Intel and Nokia last year partnered on the improvement of the Meego OS for mobile devices, but Nokia in February abandoned the OS to establish a future smartphone approach about Microsoft's Windows Telephone OS. Windows Telephone OS does not function on Intel's chips, and Otellini stated the crumbling of the partnership has forced Intel to pursue other suppliers to adopt Medfield.

Intel committed a lot of resources to Nokia about the Meego OS, but now has to restart efforts to get new clients to adopt Medfield, analysts mentioned. That could delay the launch of Intel Inside smartphones, but devices will eventually come. Even so, the achievement of such devices in a industry dominated by ARM processors remains a question mark, analysts stated.