I vaguely remember Intel tried to get into the low power / smartphone / table space at the time with their Atom line [0] in the late 00's, but due to core architecture issues they could never reach the efficiency of ARM based chips.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Atom

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usr1106 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Intel and Nokia partnered around 2007 .. 09 to introduce x86 phone SoCs and the required software stack. Remember MeeGo? Nokia engineers were horrified by the power consumption and were convinced it wouldn't work. But Nokia management wanted to go to a dual supplier model instead of just relying on TI at all cost.

MeeGo proceeded far too slowly and Elop chose his former employers' Windows instead in 2011. Nokia's decline only increased and Intel hired many Nokia engineers.

Soon Nokia made no phone anymore and Intel did not even manage to make their first mass-selling product.

ARM-based SoCs were 10 years ahead in power saving. The ARM ecosystem did not make any fatal mistakes, Intel never caught up.

	▲	pjmlp 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Symbian was using ARM, though. And no one on Espoo office was that happy with Elop, except for the board members that invited him.

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aidenn0 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think it was core architecture issues. My impression is that over the years their efforts to get into low-power devices never got the full force of their engineering prowess.

	▲	kimixa 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I worked for an IP vendor that was in some Atom SoCs (over a decade ago now though) - from what I remember the perf/w was actually pretty competitive for contemporary ARM devices when we supplied the IP, but then took so long to actually end up in products it ended up behind others - other customers were already on the next generation by that point, even if the initial projects started at about the same time. And the atoms were buggy as hell, never had more problems with dumb cache/fabric/memory controller issues. To me the Atom team always felt like a dead-end inside intel - everyone seemed to be trying to get in to a different higher-status team ASAP - our engineering contacts often changed monthly, if we even knew who our "contacts" were meant to be at any time. I think any product developed like that would struggle.