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Intel and AMD are uneasy classmates
March 1, 2007
A “UN Meets Silicon Valley” summit at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View on Wednesday was pushing technology to bridge the digital divide, but it also highlighted the different strategies in emerging markets of the two processor protagonists, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.
It is not hard to see why Intel is focusing on emerging markets with its $1bn World Ahead programme aimed at extending broadband PC access by a billion people over five years.
These markets now account for more than a third of its business and half the growth rate for PCs.
Intel’s pump-priming for demand for its chips includes encouraging governments to introduce computers in schools and banks to offer interest-free loans to students.
Its flagship product is the Classmate PC. After pilot programmes in schools in Brazil and Nigeria, it is about to go into mass production for trials in 30 emerging markets this year.
It will cost around $300 and features a Celeron processor, 7.5-inch screen and ruggedised case.
While pupils in a class will all have the basic laptop, teachers will have a more sophisticated notebook that can view what each child is working on through a dashboard networking application.
This differs from the One Laptop Per Child product and strategy that aims to provide $150 notebooks to both pupil and teacher.
“OLPC are very student-centric, we use teachers and are not so revolutionary, but we both have the same vision,” says John Davies, head of Intel’s World Ahead programme.
AMD yesterday showed off the OLPC machine with its AMD Geode processor inside and said it was talking to partners about bringing similar devices to the same category.
“Intel are trying to market to that environment, we are not: we are trying to change it,” said Henri Richard, AMD head of sales and marketing.
He said Intel had rejected an offer he made to collaborate and share code between Intel and AMD engineers on emerging market products.
Another market, another round of rivalry, it seems.
