In any case, Intel's Medfield chip is its first real foray into the smartphone arena, and I believe it's too little, too late. Even if it does manage to compete with ARM on power-efficiency and cost, that will no longer be enough, since ARM has already been offering those advantages for some time and achieved dominance because of them.

Smartphones are expected to in shipments next year, and tablets are on their way. As PCs gradually fade into the background--and particularly as less resource-hungry operating systems such as Linux and Android continue to gain ground--the Wintel monopoly's days are numbered.

When it comes to mobile, both and Intel have missed the boat.

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