Nokia And Intel To Collaborate On Mobile Linux Devices

Intel and Nokia have announced a technology partnership for portable Linux systems based on Intel’s x86 instruction set.

The two companies will collaborate on Linux-based systems spanning from the smartphone space to notebooks, using Intel’s Moblin and Nokia’s Maemo versions of Linux, which the two companies are using for their respective mobile internet device (MID) developments. Nokia has announced it is considering making a laptop.

The next version of Maemo will support 3G along with Wi-Fi – which will add more communications options for future versions of Nokia devices such as the N810 tablet. Meanwhile Intel appears to be doing likewise, since it has licensed Nokia’s 3G /HSPA modem technology.

As well as providing collaboration on mobile Linux systems, the deal will be a win for Intel. Nokia did not specify any devices that would have Intel processors, but so far its MIDs have used Texas Instrument chips, and its phones use ARM processors.

Beyond a promise to define a platform, details were sparse, but the two companies promised to define a new mobile product platform which would include smartphones netbooks and notebooks, and would use chip technologies from both vendors. The aim seems to be to challenge Microsoft and Apple in the notebook space.

The new devices will bring together “the best features and capabilities of the computing and communications worlds and will transform the user experience, bringing incredible mobile applications and always on, always connected wireless Internet access in a user-friendly pocketable form factor,” the companies said.