At the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Shanghai last week, all the hot talk was about the Atom processor, however it was Microsoft which was feeling left out in the cold.
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Although at the IDF, there was hardly any focus on Intel’s next-generation Nehalem chip and even less on the Centrino 2 processor, the focus squarely was on devices that won’t necessarily run Microsoft software i.e. handheld-size MIDs–or mobile Internet devices–and Netbooks.
Netbooks can run both Microsoft Windows and the Linux, but the MID category appears to be shaping up as a Microsoft-free zone. MID makers, who are expected to begin shipping devices later this quarter, include Lenovo, Toshiba, Panasonic, and LG Electronics.
Anand Chandrasekher, Intel senior vice president and general manager of the Ultra Mobility Group, said in his IDF keynote: “As always, we partner with Microsoft.”
Then he went on to not mention Microsoft again. However, he did mention Linux a lot. “We announced an initiative last year. A Linux-based initiative. In order to get the form factor down, to get the cost down, and to even get lower power levels beyond what was achievable. We have an entire ecosystem behind it. Ubuntu and Red Flag. The initiative is called Moblin,” Chandrasekher said.
Aptly enough, the Moblin Web site is called the “Mobile and Internet Linux Project.”
So whether MIDs will succeed or not, only time will tell. But if they do succeed, it won’t be on a Windows platform–at least not in the foreseeable future.
If MIDs catch on – Apple’s iPhone for example is a type of MID–it will be refreshing to see a PC platform develop sans Microsoft, or at least see a platform unfold in which Linux distributors may finally have an advantage over the software giant.
