Intel talks Linux, netbooks and rivalry with ARM (ZDNet Asia)

They do seem very focused on getting x86 everywhere at the moment - graphics cards, phones ... I'm a little divided on this. On the one hand I'd certainly want to see as competitive a market as possible, so if Intel dominate every niche then that would be bad for the industry as a whole. On the other hand I can see many benefits if there were a "universal ISA". That said, x86 would hardly be my first choice for the one ISA to rule them all; it's probably not the ugliest ISA in history but it's hardly pleasant. And I wouldn't want to see a world in which new architecture approaches were locked out simply because everything is x86 (more than is the case already).

As far as I'm concerned their community work is positive whatever their motivations, in that the code is not all Intel-specific (e.g. some of the enhancements to bootup they made for Moblin). It does seem slightly bizarre that they're focusing so hard on "x86 everywhere" though - the Xscale, their StrongARM variant, was pretty awesome as far as I know. It seems quite strange to get rid of that, even given the existence of Atom. I wonder if it's a decision that will pay off... will they actually save themselves design and manufacturing effort this way, or are they simply hoping that software compatibility will win the day. An interesting gamble; I'm a little doubtful that we won't have Adobe Flash on ARM phones before we have a good selection of popular x86 phones on the market.

I do think it's fairly impressive that Intel has (mostly) taken the relatively enlightened view that they're not (mostly) a software company and certainly not a driver-selling company. Open Source work is something they seem to have embraced in order to sell more hardware and improve the market they're operating in. Although things are better than they were, certain other device companies could still learn a thing or two from this.