Last week, Intel found itself in the middle of an unwanted kerfuffle when a company staff member leaked alleged comments from Paul Otellini regarding the state of Windows 8.Otellini supposedly criticized Windows 8′s readiness, but noted that Microsoft had made the right decision when it opted to release the new operating system in time for the holiday season. Intel strongly denied the accuracy of the leak and published a public response, stating that “Intel, Microsoft and our partners have been working closely together on testing and validation to ensure delivery of a high-quality experience across the nearly 200 Intel-based designs that will start launching in October.”
For someone at Microsoft, that apparently wasn’t good enough. A fresh report from Bloomberg today claims that tablet vendors have been forced to delay their product shipments due to bugs and problems with Intel’s power management software. Unlike the Intel rumors, which were at least attributed to a staffer who was present at the meeting, these new allegations are the product of “a person with knowledge of the matter.”
When ExtremeTech contacted Intel for comment, the company reiterated its previous statements, saying: “We’ve collaborated very closely with Microsoft in extensive testing and validation for our new Atom SoCs as we work with our OEM partners to enable innovative new platforms that are time-to-market for the Windows 8 launch.”
Why the rumor doesn’t track
I’ve spoken to multiple Intel spokespeople and engineers over the past year. Every time talk turns to smartphones and tablets, Intel wanted to talk about power consumption. If you look at the company’s various IDF briefings and tech disclosures, power consumption is a focus at every single level, from total device battery life to the behavior of specific busses and clock domains. Medfield was all about power. Ongoing research into digital radio and near-threshold voltage (NTV) are all about power. When we’ve discussed the company’s competitive positioning in smartphones and tablets, Intel has repeatedly stressed the improvements it would deliver with each successive generation of processor technology. That started with 32nm Medfield and Clover Trail, and it continues next year with Haswell and Valley view.
Intel is very much aware that it’s competing against an ARM ecosystem that stresses long battery life as an advantage over x86-equipped hardware and that battery life is a key consumer metric for tablets. The last thing the company will want to do is seed the market with first-gen Clover Trail hardware that can’t compete with Windows RT battery life, much less the battery life of non-Windows tablets. It would make far more sense to simply push Clover Trail back rather than take the risk of bad reviews in the critical first-impression phase.
Could it be true? Sure. But both Intel and Microsoft have put power management front-and-center in Windows 8 for months. The subsystems and changes that’ve been made are well-documented, and driver tuning would’ve been a major priority for both companies. What this really sounds like is a disgruntled Microsoft employee taking a shot at Intel in perceived retribution, without regard for the way it prolongs the spat and makes both companies look bad.
None of our contacts with other manufacturers have spoken about such problems, on or off the record, so we’re going to call shenanigans on this one.
Read more: Microsoft reveals Windows RT OEMs, device specs, battery life
So far, so good — but to actually answer the question of why Medfield matters we have to zoom out from the technical details and look at the bigger picture. The biggest announcement yesterday wasn’t Medfield — it was that Motorola has signed an extensive “multi-year, multi-device strategic partnership” with Intel to produce Android-powered smartphones and tablets. We might not know the exact details of how Intel’s x86 smartphone platform compares with ARM, but Motorola does. For months, Motorola will have been privy to the exact specs of Medfield, including the all-important power consumption figures. For months, Motorola will have been studying the architecture of Medfield, analyzing its pros and cons, building prototypes, and seeing how it compares to 
With a bona fide x86 smartphone SoC on the market, everything changes. Competition will drive prices down. If you thought smartphones were developing quickly, be prepared for even more new features from both ARM and Intel as they strive to differentiate. Consumers, for the first time ever, will actually have a choice — just like AMD and Intel on the desktop, you will be able to pick a smartphone or tablet with a CPU that best suits your needs.
