[quote=Hatfield][quote=AN]What gap are you referring to?[/quote]
The dominant mobile platforms are ARM based. It’s going to take an awful lot to induce a handset maker to retool all the h/w & s/w to switch to an x86 architecture. Why would they expend all those resources only to achieve BOM parity and something allegedly “approaching” battery life parity? It’s a huge, expensive risk with not much payoff.[/quote]The OEM would disagree with you. Just look at the 46M tablets Intel was able to get their chip into in 2014.
You’re right, ARM is the current king of the hill. My point is, not about today, but about 1-2 years from now. I’m predicting a change of guard as Intel push their way into the mobile market. You’re also discounting volume discount. If OEM can buy the same chip to put in their Android tablets, phones, Windows tablets, Windows 2-in-1, Windows laptop, Windows Phone. That’s a huge proposition. Then there’s the engineering cost of designing two separate tablets (androids and windows) for the same form factor. It would save them money if they can share the hardware r&d cost. Also, I don’t think you understand that most if not all mobile devices made today are made by ODM, not OEM. So, I don’t foresee OEM spending much more to make an INTC base device vs a QCOM device, assume the BOM cost are at parity. Then there’s also the fact that OEM don’t want to beholden to one chip vendor. That fact alone would be enough incentive for OEM to have both.
