英特尔新任CEO积极挺进移动领域

    芯片制造商英特尔（Intel）进军移动市场有点慢，但它自称正在采取措施，加快开发针对移动设备的凌动（Atom）芯片系列产品。此外，英特尔还急忙向另一个潜在的热门市场提供芯片（及服务），那就是可穿戴计算。这个新的产品类别目前已经包括联网眼镜和手表。

    英特尔公司高管层，即新任首席执行官布莱恩•科兹安尼克及新任总裁蕾妮•詹姆斯，上周五上午在旧金山回答媒体提问，讲述他们推动英特尔进军移动市场和可穿戴计算等大有前途的市场的战略。科兹安尼克和詹姆斯都是英特尔的老员工了，两人大约在一个半月前走马上任，当时前任首席执行官保罗•欧德宁刚刚离任。（另一个人事变动是，英特尔于上周四宣布，首席技术官贾斯汀•拉特纳达到了公司的强制退休年龄，即将卸任。）过去几周，科兹安尼克对自己负责的许多英特尔主要产品群进行了重新定位，同时承诺将加速开发针对智能手机和平板电脑的凌动芯片。

    科兹安尼克在上周五的活动中承认，英特尔过去对于优化自身芯片、使其更适合移动设备这件事重视不够。科兹安尼克坦言：“随着公司越来越大，越来越成功，接受这些巨大的变化变得愈发困难。”他补充道，英特尔之前可能认为自己可以让人们重新使用个人电脑，从而减缓这种过渡。不过，“这种逻辑存在根本性缺陷。”

    PC市场近年来形势严峻，即便英特尔倾尽全力推出超级本（又称超薄笔记本）也无济于事。虽然总部位于加州圣克拉拉的英特尔仍然是PC领域的霸主，但PC市场的颓势有目共睹。而且英特尔在移动领域乏善可陈，目前在智能手机和平板电脑市场的份额还不到1%。

    为了切入移动市场，英特尔前首席执行官欧德宁动作不少，从Palm和苹果（Apple）挖来不少高管就是他采取的举措之一。不过欧德宁的动作还是太慢了。上周五，科兹安尼克和詹姆斯指出，英特尔最近取得了一些成绩，例如三星（Samsung）的Galaxy Tab 3平板搭载了英特尔处理器。不过，高通（Qualcomm）等ARM处理器【该技术来自安谋科技（ARM Holdings）的授权】厂商目前仍主导着智能手机和平板电脑市场，先发优势极其明显。虽然英特尔新的管理层希望在移动领域大展拳脚，但有迹象表明，这家公司仍将专注于它传统的x86架构。

    “x86在架构上具有优势”，詹姆斯表示，他指出英特尔芯片运行微软（Microsoft）Windows操作系统的电脑上表现良好，与主流软件的配合也很出色。

    英特尔新管理层还谈到一些新领域的发展。科兹安尼克认为可穿戴市场潜力巨大，眼镜、耳机和手表等联网设备的需求或将爆棚。他还称英特尔有自己的取胜策略，将为整个新兴市场营造“生态系统”，而不仅仅局限于芯片制造商。科兹安尼克本人就拥有一副谷歌（Google）眼镜，他不愿详述英特尔在此方面的具体计划，但暗示英特尔可能推出大量辅助服务。科兹安尼克颇有把握地说：“我认为整个计划推出还需要大约两年时间，不过届时市场将呈爆炸式增长。”和它在移动领域的后知后觉不同，英特尔这次打算先发制人。（财富中文网）

    译者：项航

    Intel was slow to enter the mobile market, but the chipmaker says it is now taking steps to speed up development of its Atom chip line for mobile devices. It's also rushing ahead to provide silicon (and services) to another potentially hot market: wearables, a new product category which includes connected glasses and watches.

    The company's top executives, new CEO Brian Krzanich and president Renee James, met with reporters Friday morning in San Francisco to answer questions about their strategy to push Intel into mobile and up-and-coming markets like wearables. The duo, both long-time Intel (INTC) insiders, assumed their new positions about a month and a half ago, when former CEO Paul Otellini stepped down. (In other changes, on Thursday the company announced that CTO Justin Rattner is stepping down from his role because he has hit the company's mandatory retirement age.) Over the last few weeks, Krzanich has repositioned many of the company's main product groups under his supervision. He has also vowed to speed up development of Intel's Atom chips for smartphones and tablets.

    At Friday morning's event, Krzanich admitted that in the past, the company hadn't put enough focus on getting its chips optimized for mobile devices. "As companies get bigger and more and more successful, accepting these big changes gets harder," said Krzanich, adding that Intel may have thought it could slow the transition to mobile by pulling people back to PCs. "There was a basic fundamental flaw in that logic," said the CEO.

    The PC market has been highly challenging, despite Intel's attempts to push ultrabooks -- a.k.a. super-thin laptops. While the Santa Clara-based company's chips still power the vast majority of PCs, that market is contracting. Meanwhile, Intel has less than 1% market share in tablets and smartphones.

    Former CEO Otellini had also tried to pave the way to greater market share in mobile, hiring executives from Palm and Apple (AAPL) to steer the company's mobile efforts. But progress was slow. On Friday, Krzanich and James pointed out a few recent "wins" -- like Samsung's Galaxy Tab 3 tablet, which features an Intel processor. At the same time, companies like Qualcomm (QCOM), which licenses competing chip technology from ARM Holdings, still dominate the smartphone and tablet market and have had a huge head start. And while Intel's new leadership is trying to move faster, it seems to be sticking to the company's historic microprocessor design, x86.

    "There's an architectural advantage to x86 beyond compatibility," said James, referring to the fact that Intel chips work well with computers that run on the Microsoft (MSFT) Windows operating system and mainstream applications.

    Intel's new leadership also talked about fresh opportunities in other areas. Krzanich said he thinks growth in the wearables market -- which includes connected devices like glasses, earpieces, and watches -- is going to be explosive. He also said he thinks Intel has a winning model for providing a whole "ecosystem" to support this new market, not just as the chip supplier. Krzanich, who owns a pair of Google's (GOOG) connected glasses, wouldn't elaborate on what exactly Intel is doing on this end, but hinted at a slew of supporting services. "I think it will take about two years to roll that plan out, but I think you'll see an explosion," said Krzanich. Unlike with mobile, it appears Intel is trying to get ahead of the game on this one.