14 DAY TRIAL // Intel, the biggest microprocessor manufacturer, readies to launch two major products that will combine two of the company's platforms, Centrino - the Intel mobile technology and Viiv - the technology for digital living rooms.
Napa is the third Intel mobile technology generation and it is almost ready to be officially showcased in January 2006. During this time, the company plans together with its partners to launch the Viiv equipments and aggressively promote them. Both technologies will be presented during CES (Consumer Electronics Show) in Las Vegas in January 2006.
Intel presented information about the Napa technology, saying that it will work in combination with Intel's dual core Yonah processors using a Intel Mobile 945 chipset and the Intel ProWireless 3945ABG chip. The company states that the new Napa platform will outtake in performance the actual Sonoma platform with over 68%. Also, the Napa notebooks are said to use 28 percent less power than the Sonoma ones.
Keith Kressin, director of marketing with Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, claims that the laptops based on the Napa platform will have enough supporting partners, the company receiving over 230 designs for notebooks from the manufacturers.
On the other side, the Viiv technology is shaped after the Centrino platform. In order, Intel sells to its partners the combination and then helps them promote the bard using a advertising campaign. To receive the marketing help, the vendors must use all the components specified by Intel for this platform, in this case, a dual core Intel processor, one of the few multimedia chips, a Gigabit Ethernet networking chip, Microsoft's operating system Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 and a few other components that will offer instant on and off features and high definition sound.
Until now, the companies that offered multimedia content hesitated to join Intel and Microsoft in the digital living room project offering premium media content available from the Internet, though, during next year, it seems that some media giants will join the two companies, offering content.