Intel teams with Android

Intel has announced a partnership with Google to optimise Android smartphone software for use on Intel's technology, aiming to kick-start the chipmaker's stalled push into the market for mobile devices.

Google will tailor all versions of its Android operating system to ensure that they run well on Intel technology, Google senior vice-president Andy Rubin said yesterday. Smartphones running on Intel's chips will go on sale in the first half of next year.

By working with Google, whose Android is the most widely used mobile-operating system, Intel said it would be able to help prospective customers get phones to market more quickly.

The chipmaker has tried for more than 10 years to break into the phone market, which is growing more rapidly than the personal-computer business.

"Good products on good platforms can still make a big difference in this industry and we hope to be one of them," said Intel chief executive Paul Otellini.

The PC market now provides Intel with more than 90 per cent of its sales.

Otellini declined to name which phonemakers would use its products.

Separately, Intel said it had created a mobile-phone design based on the Medfield version of its Atom chip. The company is providing that design to potential partners, some of whom may begin selling it under their brands.

Sales of smartphones surged 74 per cent to 107.7 million devices worldwide in the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, according to a Gartner report.

- Bloomberg