Qualcomm is also contracted to be a supplier of ARM processors for Windows Surface RT tablets. Intel will provide X86 processors for Surface Windows Pro tablets.

Despite the apparently unplanned departure from Intel, analysts agreed that Chandrasekher is a seasoned product development and marketing pro. He holds a bachelor's degree in computer science, as well as a master's in operations research from Cornell University and an MBA from Cornell.

Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf said Chandrasekher is "well suited to help grow Qualcomm's communications and marketing efforts across the world and to amplify our consumer offerings to new audiences."

Even though Chandrasekher has focused on marketing, Gold said it's possible, given his experience with Atom, that he can help Qualcomm engineers develop new chips to sell along with the ARM-based Snapdragon processors.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at , or subscribe to . His e-mail address is .