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Intel’s chips are finally going to start showing up in phones next year, and Ultrabooks are due soon, but it looks like the world’s top chip maker’s making a push in software, too. Intel just bought Israel-based mapping software company Telmap for between £193 – £225 million.
The impetus behind the deal is to create a “true alternative” to Google Maps and Nokia’s Ovi. But more to the point, it’s a huge and telling step for Intel, which has increasingly been expanding its purview outside of pure chip-making. Intel’s AppUp blog notes that Telmap will help supply AppUp developers with a standard set of location-based APIs and software to make location services easier to add to their apps.
Telmap’s services include mapping and navigation, location-based advertising and social integration, and ultra-local services like realtime traffic updates and event guides, and they expect the deal to close before the end of the year. [New York Times, Telmap, Intel]
Looks like intel is trying to build itself an ecosystem, like Apple, Google and Microsoft. With the rise of mobile meaning that intel’s (comparatively) power hungry chips are being ignored (and Windows 8 being ported to ARM) Intel see’s it’s hold on the chip market slipping. With Meego having been canned for whatever it replacement is called (sorry I forgot, though I’m pretty sure it starts with a T) Intel needs a OS of it’s own before it can play this game.
Tizen is Intels new mobile OS, although any apps compatible with MeeGo will run natively on Tizen.
Also, as I know that we’re all in the same timezone now…
..MORNIN’ UK!! (^_^)
And Good Morning to you too.
see, i knew it began with T. Re app compatability, they also said this when they switched from Moblin to MeeGo. They need to stick to an OS for more than 5 minutes if they intend to release devices and attract developers.
True, but in all fairness to Intel I think it was more Nokia pushing them to integrate Moblin and Maemo (before they jumped into bed with Balmer), promising to help them develop it into MeeGo.
I loved Maemo
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Yeah, Nokia’s such a slag, making all those promises to Intel before running off with Balmer. They should do a tech centered episode of the Jeremy Kyle Show. “You promised we’d be together forever, but now you’ve abandoned me and our baby”
lol… don’t get me started!
Last laughs going to be on her though, WP7 looks like it has a lot of money, but he has very few friends and his parents killed his 2 brothers (Windows mobile & Kin) before he was born and so he lives in fear they might kill again. Seriously this is prime stuff for Jeremy Kyle.