Intel changes strategy to focus on Quark

The market for smartphones and tablets is huge and Intel has completely failed to penetrate the market. Apparently, Intel has learnt from its mistake and a new strategy is proposed where Intel will focus on ultra compact and portable devices and medical equipment.

The technology scene changes extremely rapidly and it is difficult for a lot of companies to adapt fast enough. Recent examples include the acquisition of Nokia but also the that the tablet market is larger than the PC market. Intel has also had a relatively poor history in the field of smartphones and compact devices and for years has been shunned by most smartphone and tablet manufacturers who have chosen ARM CPUs instead of Intel x86 CPUs.

Now, it appears that Intel has learnt from its mistakes and has determined to develop the next-generation ultra compact and energy efficient CPUs mainly targeting ultra compact portable devices as well as medical equipment. Intel has given the new product series the name Quark and envisages that it will be used for everything ranging from devices similar to Google Glass but also to medical equipment that have size limitations, such as electronic capsules that are swallowed by the patients.

Quark is designed to be a fifth of the size of an Atom CPU and will only use 10% of the power of an Atom CPU, for the same computing power. The purpose with Quark is to give Intel an edge in the future when the demand of ultra compact CPUs will rise. 

Of course, Intel is not alone to realize this and competition will still be tough, primarily from Qualcomm and AMD who will certainly not give any market segment for free to Intel. In addition, Intel needs to be aware such that it does not cannibalize on itself such as the case for Atom CPUs, where they have become powerful enough that they have started to cannibalize on the budget segment of PCs, something which significantly hurts the revenue of Intel.