Web journalism is here to stay - Roy Greenslade, Guardian Online
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Montevina delays are no big deal
IT IS NOT NEWS that Montevina is late, nor that it is going to have repercussions, but the question is why did this happen. Related to it is what is the fallout.
The mostly official why is that there was a paperwork snafu with the FCC and the wireless portion didn't get certified. What isn't being said is that Montevina uses a PCIe half-card format for its 802.11x cards. Intel can't step back to the older a/b/g card because those are full sized and simply won't fit. Ah, the joys of bleeding-edge packaging.
Intel has never been too good at new wireless standards, and the paperwork snafu does not explain the rumours of a new silicon spin we are hearing about. Other rumours are that the 802.11n portion will be fused off, and initial Montevinas will be a/b/g only. Not a huge loss for any consumer, but a black eye for Intel.
The other statement that doesn't parse is that consumers want discrete graphics and that is what Intel is going to ship first. Well, consumer buying patterns show about 70 per cent of laptops sold have integrated GPUs, so I want some of whatever Otellini was on when he said that.
Consumers do want the idea great graphics, but they don't want to pay for discrete, either in cash, battery life, or weight. Intel ignoring 70 per cent of the market because that is 'what consumers want' doesn't make sense.
In the end, there is one thing you can really point to is that the way Intel cut chipset makers out of the market is biting it in the ass once again. If there is no plan B, and if Plan A gets screwed up, you don't ship. It happened with server chipsets, it happened with gaming chipsets, and is happening with mobile. It is the dark side of platforms, but Intel will work through it as always.
The impact of Montevina delays will be pretty small. AMD is launching Puma in a few days, and that will bring it up to 'good enough' status for most consumers. It won't threaten current Intel SKUs much, especially on the high end where Montevina plays. Intel is still the only real game in town here, and that more than anything means any Montevina delays won't matter much to the bottom line.µ
Tags: Intel
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"The other statement that doesn't parse is that consumers want discrete graphics and that is what Intel is going to ship first. Well, consumer buying patterns show about 70 per cent of laptops sold have integrated GPUs"

Because integrated is the vast majority within laptops. Discrete even appearing was just a rising trend a year ago. The i945 in the Centrino platform counts for the majority and pretty much skews the numbers. Discrete is prefered if you can find them. So smoke what ya got because it must GIVE ya glacoma.