With netbooks and Windows-based laptops fading into a landscape increasingly dominated by tablets and smartphones, chip giant Intel would be wise to become Apple’s go-to for custom chips, one analyst reasoned Monday. “A partnership between the two companies would drive dominance in tablets similar to Wintel’s dominance in PCs,” Piper Jaffray chip expert Gus Richard tells investors.
Noting “Intel has no market share in the next wave of computing,” Richard also sees an opportunity for the chipmaker. Citing “a number of inputs” the analyst believes Apple is moving away from its contentious arrangement with Samsung (which has both sued and competes with the Cupertino, Calif. company) toward Intel, Toshiba and Micron, among others.
Such a deal only makes sense. Not only does Intel have prior relationship with Apple (its Sandy Bridge processor is expected soon in Apple’s updated iMacs), but any pact would come as the iPad-maker is still climbing higher with record profits.
[Barron’s]
