Investor's Business Daily, April 12th, 2007
Advanced Micro Devices has gained momentum in the key market for chips used to run portable PCs, but archrival Intel says it has a stopper -- the first major upgrade to its successful Centrino chip platform.
Intel INTC has said it plans to roll out the line, code-named Santa Rosa, this quarter. Analysts including Nollenberger's Hans Mosesmann are saying early May.
With Santa Rosa, Intel likely will start to take back share in the notebook chip sector in the second half of the year, Mosesmann says.
"They're improving on the platform," he said. "They're putting distance between them and what AMD may be offering."
Mercury Research says AMD AMD boosted its share of notebook processor sales in the fourth quarter by 2.6 percentage points vs. the third quarter, to 19.4%, while Intel's share fell by the same amount, to 80.6%.
AMD gained when it took a technology lead that some analysts say will end with this new update to Centrino, which made a big splash when released by Intel in 2003. The No. 1 chipmaker unleashed one of its largest marketing efforts ever with Centrino. So far it's been relatively quiet about Santa Rosa, which analysts consider a major product rollout.
Santa Rosa could extend the Centrino brand for years, says Roger Kay, an analyst with research firm Endpoint.
"Intel established a brand with Centrino, and they're anxious to get as much out of it as possible," Kay said.
But No. 2 computer processor maker AMD has its own upgrade coming out for the portable PC market, setting the stage for yet another battle royal between the longtime rivals.
Will Overtake Desktops
Laptop, notebook and other portable computers are the sweet spot of the PC market, just like the fine wines that come from Santa Rosa's namesake Northern California town. Market tracker Gartner says portable PC unit sales will likely surpass desktop PC sales by 2011.
Intel calls Centrino a "platform" because it includes nearly all the chips in a portable PC -- the main processor and the group of chips, or chip set, that assists the processor.
Santa Rosa will improve on Centrino in a couple of ways. It will use Intel's new, higher-performance Core 2 Duo chips. And it will offer the option of a much faster wireless chip.
In addition, Santa Rosa will mark Intel's first use of flash memory in its notebook platform. Flash helps machines boot up and run programs faster.
This combination of features will boost performance -- transaction speed, graphics quality and more -- by about 20% over today's Centrino notebooks, analysts say.
Mosesmann expects Santa Rosa to give a lift to portable PC sales in general.
"Santa Rosa could lead to notebook sales being a little stronger in the second and third quarters," he said. "Nothing as exciting (as the Santa Rosa rollout) is happening with desktop PCs. It's going to catch people's interest."
AMD's new platform will add to that interest. Matt Mazzantini, AMD's mobile marketing manager, says AMD's new line also will use a dual-core chip, part of AMD's Turion line. AMD has code-named the new chip line Hawk.
Mazzantini says AMD plans to let Hawk fly near quarter's end.
"We're moving very rapidly to begin shipping," he said. "When we look at our broad portfolio, and those of our partners, we feel like we provide a great solution for Windows Vista compared to Centrino." Vista is Microsoft's MSFT new computer operating system.
On April 4, Intel revealed that there will be two models in the Santa Rosa line. One model, Centrino Pro, targets notebooks for business users. Centrino Pro will include a version of Intel's vPro technology. That's a set of circuits that provides security and helps users manage files.
Intel also plans to introduce a version of Santa Rosa for consumers, but it hasn't revealed the product's name yet.
Stressing Security
In an interview this week, Intel Mobile Marketing Manager Brian Tucker lauded the security features of Centrino Pro.
"One security feature we call system defense," Tucker said. "In the chip set we have a network filter looking at all the traffic coming through the notebook. It's looking for viruses and anything out of the ordinary."
Besides the Core 2 Duo processor, Santa Rosa will include the mobile Intel 965 Express chip set.
Core 2 Duo is Intel's latest dual-core microprocessor. Dual-core chips have two compute engines on a single piece of silicon. That kicks performance up without a corresponding jump in power usage and heat. Too much heat can slow, or ruin, a computer.
Intel users will have the option of getting Santa Rosa with today's 802.11 a/g Wi-Fi wireless chips. Or for more money, they can get the new 802.11n version Wi-Fi chip, code-named Kedron.
Today's a/g Wi-Fi chips let notebook PC users and cell phone users hook up to the Internet if they're within 150 feet indoors and 300 feet outdoors.
Intel says Kedron will let them connect from double that distance, and at eight times the speed.
Copyright 2007 Investor's Business Daily, Inc.
