Intel sets Windows 8 tablet event with HP, Samsung, others
Chip giant will host a coming-out party for Windows 8 tablets using its latest system-on-a-chip. — Intel is going to kick off the season of the Windows 8 tablet by hosting an event next week attended by virtually all of the major PC players.
Context & Ripple Effects
This event is the payoff to a year of groundwork: Intel first showed its 2012 phone-and-tablet silicon in December 2011, published its Windows 8 tablet requirements checklist in April, and by June had Acer and Toshiba publicly committed to taking on the iPad with Windows 8 tablets. Two days before this announcement, Intel unveiled the Clover Trail Atom with promised ARM-like battery life — the chip this coming-out party exists to showcase.
The breadth of pickup is itself the story: SiliconANGLE, ZDNet, VentureBeat, The Verge and others all ran the item on the same day, reflecting how much rides on whether the traditional PC ecosystem can field a credible tablet answer as Windows 8 arrives.
First-order effects
- HP, Samsung and the other attending PC makers get a coordinated launch stage for their Clover Trail-based Windows 8 tablets, concentrating early shelf presence around Intel silicon rather than scattering across chip vendors.
- Clover Trail's headline promise — Atom power draw approaching ARM-class battery life — becomes the sales pitch OEMs must repeat, making battery benchmarks the immediate test of the platform.
Second-order effects
- Because Clover Trail will completely eschew Linux support, per Intel Developer Forum disclosures, OEMs building on it are locked into Windows-only devices — a commitment that shapes their entire tablet roadmap, not just one product cycle.
- Samsung arrives at an Intel-branded event while running print and TV campaigns mocking iPhone 5 buyers, so its Windows 8 tablet push lands inside an already-hot Apple confrontation it is funding elsewhere.
Third-order effects
- If Clover Trail's battery-life claims hold, the Wintel alliance extends from PCs into tablets as a package deal — chips, OS and OEM channel moving together — turning the tablet market into a direct x86-versus-ARM contest rather than a series of separate device launches.
The trend: Intel is using its grip on the PC OEM ecosystem to carry x86 into tablets, betting that Windows 8 plus Clover Trail can neutralize ARM's battery-life advantage.