Dual-core model to be released next month

Aug 13, 2008 14:52 GMT  ·  By

As we mentioned in a number of our previous articles, the netbook market sees a healthy dynamic growth, compared to the other hardware markets. In fact, it looks like the netbooks are the only products that don't seem affected by the worldwide slowing growth in the PC market. Ultimately, this is nothing but great news for the current leading chipmaker, Intel.

It's a well known fact that most of today's netbooks are powered by one of Intel's processors, namely the Atom. This is the reason why the impressive growth in the netbook market is also boosting revenues for the Santa Clara-based manufacturer.

"Atom is off to a very, very rapid start, far exceeding our expectations when we started the year," Chief Financial Officer Stacy Smith said in an interview with Reuters, on Tuesday. "It's the perfect recession product to have in the marketplace."

The Atom has been designed specifically for the low-cost computer systems that Intel calls Mobile Internet Devices, or MIDs. The processor is also ideal for other devices that the company's customers will need to come out with alternative products in order to face the slackening economy.

"It plays very well in the mobile marketplace; it plays in emerging markets; it plays into people's desire to have a second PC, or one for the kids that's low-cost yet still capable," Smith said of Atom. "It's off to the races."

On that note, Intel's Atom is yet to reach its full market potential, as it's unclear what the extent of Atom's success will be. It is expected that the Atom will also boost the revenues for Intel, which sees a rather slow growth when it comes to its main PC business.

In related news, ongoing rumors suggest that the dual-core version of the company's Atom processor is due to be released sometime in late September. The new processor comes to build on the successful run of the company's single-core model, which has been featured on almost every notebook on the market.