What to expect from Intel at IDF09. The 4 M’s

IDF is nearly here and it’s traditionally the most important week of the Mobile Computing calendar so watch closely because we’ll be getting information on some of the most important technologies that go together to build leading-edge mobile computing and mobile internet solutions. Battery technology, radio technology, graphics, CPUs and of course, software.

MIDs, Moblin, Menlow and Moorestown. In the mobile computing arena, these are the 4 keywords you should expect to hear a lot of next week and I’ll be there as an ‘Insider’ to bring you all the important news, to analyze what it means for mobile computing devices of 2010, to interview some of the major players and to seek out new hardware and devices that we could see hitting the market in Q4.

MIDs

One of the first things to find out is Intel’s latest vision for MIDs. What is Intel’s MID? Is it everything from a phone to a Windows 7 tablet or have they refined their definition? I’ll be looking for hints about how they will market MIDs with voice capability and i’ll also be looking for new devices. Viliv now have all publicly-seen prototypes out as products (i’ll be receiving the new S7 within the next 48hours and testing at UMPCPortal) so what’s next for them? Why are they at IDF. I’m expecting to see one or two new products. The same goes for UMID. Their product has been out for months so why are they at IDF?!!

Moblin

Moblin is a Linux Foundation project now but we’ll be getting an update from all the major players including the distributors that are going to be refining Moblin for OEM devices. Canonical, Xandros, Linux and WindRiver will all have updates for us. My main question for them how do you intend to seed a developer community?

Menlow

Lets be honest. Menlow didn’t produce a huge river of mobile internet devices. Aigo, Benq, Willcom, Clarion and Viliv have had some success but there have been a number of MID prototypes that didn’t reach the market. More importantly, we’re now seeing this platform being used for other devices. Netbooks and tablets being the two interesting areas for consumers. Intel plan to continue the Menlow platform and run it alongside the Moorestown (see below) platform but what devices do they expect to see using it?

Moorestown

Moorestown pushes x86 where it’s never been before. Partnered with the Moblin operating system it’s got a power profile that, for the first time, fits with smartphone usage patterns and this is the reason that it’s got hardware and software support for voice. We’ve seen some prototypes and heard that products could be reaching markets by Q1 2010 but that’s not the only thing that Moorestown is suitable for. Will there be a version that supports Windows software? Will it scale up to netbook or ‘smart book’ devices. Ebooks? Gaming? Navigation devices. There’s a big range of devices that Moorestown could be suitable for.

One element of Moorestown that still hasn’t been made public is the the graphics architecture. Will it use the PowerVR architecture as seen in Menlow or will it be something new? It’s an important subject not just for Moorestown but also for PineTrail, the new netbook platform. We expect to hear this detail at the Mobile Computing keynote on Wednesday 23rd September.

More of my thoughts on Moorestown here.

I’m also hearing about a few interesting devices that could be there. I can’t tell you anything at the moment but stay tuned because this little ‘Insider’ tag I’ve got now could get me in on some early info!