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Intel Eyes Acquisitions of Consumer Electronics-Oriented Companies.

Category: Other

by Anton Shilov

[ 05/07/2008 | 06:07 AM ]

There are fears about recession of the economy, but the world’s largest maker of microprocessors Intel Corp. plans to invest while the market is down, just like it did early in the decade. This time Intel intends to take over companies who are focused on development of consumer electronics, said a vice president of Intel Corp. in an interview.

“I think you will see Intel being more acquisitive,” said Patrick P. Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager at Intel’s digital enterprise group, in an interview with the Financial Times.

Earlier this decade Intel acquired a number of non-core assets in various industries, but did not really capitalize on those merges due to lack of strategy ahead of the deals. According to Mr. Gelsinger, the chipmaker has learned its lessons and now would only take over companies that fit into the strategy that already exists at Intel.

The head of digital enterprise group at Intel brought acquisition of Havok last year as an example of a new acquisition approach of the chip giant. Even though Havok acts like a subsidiary of Intel, it is a key element of Intel’s visual computing and graphics efforts.

Mr. Gelsinger said that Intel eyed five areas where it could boost its in-house technology with acquisitions: consumer electronics (CE), advanced mobile applications, embedded devices, visualisation technologies and low-cost computers.

Intel recently introduced its Intel Atom microprocessor with which it targets advanced handheld devices and CE, however, it only unveiled Intel Centrino Atom platform for so-called mobile Internet devices (MIDs), whereas manufacturers of other types of consumer electronics will are likely to develop platforms for Atom themselves.

Intel has also put a lot of effort into development of visualization and graphics technologies as well as creation of low-cost PCs. Therefore, an idea to further boost its own expertise with acquisitions means that Intel is very serious about such products.