Intel bets big on its tablet dream with 4x growth

Once it ruled the PC market but with its dwindling graph Intel is poised to capture the tablet surge around the world. In calender year 2014 Intel has planned to sell 40 million tablets worldwide.

The DQ Week spoke to Intel in an exclusive interview on its tablet plans in 2014. "Very clearly at a top level we have told our investors, employees and clients that Intel is aiming at 40-million plus tablets this year", said Narendra Bhandari, Director-Asia Pacific, Intel. "If you look at mobility then it ranges across consumers, it is personal choice based. Our objective is regardless of these phone or screen sizes we are going to look at somewhere around 40-million tablets in calender year 2014 across the world", explains Bhandari.

So how Intel intents to achieve this growth? Apart from hardware support which is Intel's bread and butter it is working closely with the developer community to provide software support too. "Within the tablet strategy we are going to work with pretty significant amount of software ecosystem to make sure they bring many of those application which really take advantage of our hardware also", says Bhandari.

It wants the consumer to have a better experience by taking advantage of the Intel architecture by ensuring better performance, better battery life, better graphics, and better responsiveness on its tablets. Intel is creating opportunities for the developer community in order to write applications on its hardware platform. So from a software perspective Intel is working with developers to create applications to add more value to the user experience of a specific vertical. "As Intel does not develop applications we will optimize third party ISVs to bring in and optimize their applications and fit into the user experience closer to the tablet", says Bhandari.

The Clovetrail and Bay trail will continue to play significant role in Intel's tablet dream. The ATOM processor with Clove trail technology and products are already there in the market. Bhandari says that the market will see a significant volume of Baytrail android based tablets in the second half of this year. It will have significantly better graphics, and performance and also in terms of capabilities of integration.

Suryanarayanan B, Director Sales, Intel explained how Intel is focused in the changing form factors when it comes to mobility and tablets. "With all these new form factors changing the biggest thing we are focused on is how do we grow our tablets and two-in-one business. In tablets we have a 4x growth plan worldwide. We have sizable volume to deliver from India standpoint. Also in mobility our focus is two-in-one", said Suryanarayanan.

Intel is closely working with OEM's like Simtronics, Lava, Micromax and Karbonn to drive the tablet sale. "We are working wit each of these OEMs on their go-to-market plans", said Suryanarayanan. Commenting on the distribution policy Suryanarayanan said, "The first phase is to get the products in country. We will have programs with LFR, standard IT channel, small format retail and telecom retail to drive the growth".