It is particularly odd behavior given that in 2006, Intel sold off the mobile portion of the XScale line of ARM chips, but not the rest of the XScale line. Either they've since had a complete change of heart about the wisdom of going after the handheld market, or the 2006 deal was the result of a really huge outbreak of Not Invented Here syndrome.
I think Intel, like Microsoft missed the big move to mobile.
Intel want x86 on the phones, since there are so many developers out there used to it, so many tools, so much software that would only need a small tweek.
> so many tools, so much software that would only need a small tweek.
I'm not sure about that. ISA is an implementation detail, a popup in your IDE.
Any existing Windows or Mac app that needs to go mobile will in the least need an interface overhaul (true for iOS and WP7) and at most need to adopt completely new mobile APIs.
I always wondered about that, but I think that part of the problem with XScale is that it ended up being so far behind. When Intel acquired XScale from DEC, they really only got the IP, not the people... so they had to waste a lot of time assembling teams and re-building expertise, by which time the rest of the industry had left them in the dust.
Atom is a decent first step toward that niche, but I'm still not convinced about the value of x86 in mobile computing either.
