14 DAY TRIAL // As expected, Intel went on record regarding the tablet market and its intentions for it. It would have been strange if Computex 2012 came and went without something of the sort.
The Santa Clara, California-based company will ship Clovertrail at some point during the second half of the year.
Sales probably won't take off all that fast though, at least not before Microsoft launches the Windows 8 operating system.
The OS is expected to debut in November, or October if things go smoothly. Intel might launch the SoC sooner or wait for the software before doing anything.
That doesn't mean that the Santa Clara, California-based company is slacking off though. Intel has already secured design wins.
At Computex, it said that 20 Windows 8 slates would use the Clovertrail Atom SoC. All of them will easily play movies, view and share photos, act as study implements, surf the Internet, participate in social media or even play casual online games.
Likewise, there should be some tablets suited for enterprise/business use, but no details exist yet.
For our part, we believe Advanced Micro Devices could seriously endanger Intel's plans if it gets enough partners on board.
Even more of a threat is NVIDIA's Kai reference platform: quad-core Tegra tablet at just $199 / 199 Euro. Acer has already brought out a model that follows these guidelines (A110).
That's right, in order for those 20 Clovertrail tablets to see any success, they'll have to prove more convenient, somehow, than quad-core, powerful tablets priced at less than Amazon's Kindle Fire.
For those interested in everything else at Intel's Computex expo, the inductive-charged wireless keyboard and the odd laptop Anti-Theft alarm are worth a look or two. Everything else from the show, Intel-made or otherwise, can be found here (ultrabooks, tablets, SSDs, graphics cards, dual-GPU motherboards, absurd video cards, you name it).