Can Intel Really Muscle Into Smartphones?

For operators, voice ARPU (average revenue per user) is not the focus, data ARPU is the focus. Service providers are dying for a new source of revenue. As things go social, they are trying to figure out how to make money off video, how to make money off location-based services.

Does every operator understand it? No. But this is a new industry in the making. I can guarantee that in three to five years from now, any operator will be making much more money on data than they are today.

Powerful computers, faster networks, and what consumers want. Those three trends make a perfect storm.

Bandwidth increase is like gravity

One problem might be the cost of the network bandwidth. That is eating into any profits they think they might make.

In the short term, maybe. In the long term, it’s gravity – the pace of technology is an inevitable force, if consumers want something.

But you are used to selling PCs, devices that can be driven as the user pleases, like selling cars for people to drive on the roads. Operators believe they are running a railway, where the operator determines what the user can do, and how their device is used. They are going to be threatened by this sort of device, aren’t they?

Service providers are the middle people. I don’t think about what they want. I think about what the consumers want. If consumers want something, they get it – and consumers want the same Internet on their personal device, the same YouTube, the same Flicker, the same Twitter, they get on their PC.

But Intel failed with WiMax…

So Intel believes its technology is so good, operators will take it even if they don’t want it? That didn’t work with WiMax, [the mobile networking technology Intel hoped would be adopted instead of LTE for next generation mobile networks] did it?

You are comparing apples and oranges there.

Yes – I’m doing it deliberately, to make the point that you can’t tell operators what to do.

This is not a hammer looking for a nail. Users want the same Internet on mobile devices, and Intel happens to have the expertise to deliver this.

At the end of the day artificial limitations come down. If the user wants something, it will be delivered.

And we are working with a number of service providers who are moving in this direction. One example is Orange – which has said they share Intel’s vision of devices becoming computers, and they like Intel’s direction with Atom and Meego. You will hear more about this in future.

And I do not agree that WiMax has failed. That is not true. There is a trend to faster data rates. WiMax and LTE both support faster data rates, and on the devices we are showing today, we support both. It’s not about one thing or another, it is driven by the user.

Are you planning to support other operating systems beside Android, Moblin and Meego?

We are not even done with our announcement and you want more? Intel is all about supporting multiple operating systems. You can expect to hear other operating systems in future.