Smartphones also use different processors, and most of the smartphones today are based on Arm processors. Intel has opened up Meego to Arm processors but is also investing heavily in software development for its upcoming Moorestown chips, which will go into smartphones.

The Meego OS, announced in February, merges Intel's Moblin and Nokia's Maemo Linux-based operating systems. Meego's development is managed by The Linux Foundation. Intel and Nokia are pouring resources into development of the OS.

Fisher said the aim behind Meego is to provide an OS optimized to allow devices with Intel chips to easily communicate with each other. Many devices have multiple operating systems and cannot interact with each other. Meego will allow interoperability between devices based on similar architectures, which could reduce software development costs for service providers.

Meego also helps consolidate an open-source landscape that is highly fragmented, Fisher said. Multiple versions of Linux are available today for netbooks and smartphones. Google is developing the Chrome OS for netbooks and has released the Android OS for smartphones and tablets. Canonical is offering an edition of its Linux-based Ubuntu OS for netbooks.

But Fisher said that Ubuntu and Google are partners, and as a chip maker, Intel's competition comes from chip designers like Arm. Intel's main goal is not to put Meego on as many devices as possible, but to ensure that the device works with Intel architecture.