Intel are the master of inking meaningless deals. The release of information about Nokia forming a technology partnership with Intel is scant on substance, and from a business perspective I'm wondering who the winners and losers are here.
ARM doesn't really lose anything, because the deal is non-exclusive. Nokia still deals with ARM and its partners in exactly the same way that it always has done. Judging by Nokias results last year, and the way that it is slowly transforming itself from purely a handset maker into a service provider and software platforms company, teaming up with Intel will simply add items to the balance sheet. Nokia doesn't have to do a lot since I suspect Intel will bear most of the development costs, and intel gets their name on a nokia device. Nokia will sell these devices, and make a profit from them.
Intel also gains from this, since they'll have access to lucrative 3G IP necessary to connect their future Atom platforms to mobile telephony.
With the advent of full internet on ARM (see any news search engine, or this blog, for information on flash availability for smartphones in October this year), there is no compelling reason for Nokia to adopt Intel across the board. The last of the holes have been plugged as far as the internet on ARM goes, and the only compelling reason left for Nokia to work with Intel is in creating a Netbook class device. Even then, the cogs are in motion for many ARM based smartbooks to appear on the market before years-end.
The obfuscatory language used around the Nokia/Intel announcement leads one to suspect that they are trying to muddy the waters sufficiently to make poeple think it's all about smartphones, when in fact its probably just another netbook announcement. There have been Nokia netbook rumours floating since netbooks were in their infancy.
Although this is a small victory fo Intel, it is a paper tiger soon to be shrivelled.
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