Intel Further Exploring the Idea of Making Chips for Windows Phone 8 Hardware?

With Windows 8, Microsoft made many major changes in a gamble to shift focus away from traditional PC computing and into the growing mobile sector. While it still remains unseen how this path will play out for the Redmond-based company, they aren’t the only companies involved in such a shift.

Intel has also continually made efforts of late to reach away from its traditional PC chip marketplace, and into the Android device market. Although ARM chips are traditionally much smaller and more power consumption-friendly, Intel has made great strides to changing all of this in recent years.

In the last year Intel has continued to push itself in the Android handset market, though it still clearly remains tied strongly to Microsoft Windows in the desktop world.

Beyond Android mobile devices, Intel has also played a massive role in the Windows 8 tablet space as well. It is clear that Intel is at least partially trying to ride on Microsoft’s success (or failure) in the mobile market by continuing to strongly support Windows in this new space.

Intel needs Windows to be a success as much as Microsoft, I’d wager. Why? Eventually the PC market is going to dry up, at least on the “standard” consumer level. When it does, Intel is going to have to turn fully to the mobile and enterprise space for the rest of its business.

While Intel continues to reach out to Android handset makers and forge new partnerships, it is clear that it is still second fiddle in the Android tablet and phone world when compared to companies like Nvidia and Qualcomm. Microsoft on the other hand has had limited success with ARM processors so far with Windows RT and AMD has been nothing more than a minor player in the Windows 8 tablet wars.

With Microsoft and Intel relying so much on one another, it isn’t a surprise to hear that Intel may finally be getting into the Windows Phone hardware game.

Intel Exploring the Idea of Building Chips for Windows Phone 8 Hardware?

Roughly a month or so ago, a senior product manage for Windows Phone hinted it would be easy for Intel to get involved in making phones with their x86 processors because the “architecture is such that [Windows Phone 8 is] hardware independent”.

Now a new job posting has appeared at Intel, asking for people with Windows Phone expertise:

Windows Phone Engineers Intel would like to talk to you. If you have Windows phone expertise, the Intel site in Redmond would like to talk to you. Please contact us at_503-544-7336. Thanks…

While this one job posting is far from an official declaration that Intel is planning to build chips for Windows Phone 8 devices, it shows that they are at least continuing to look into the idea. Right now Microsoft seems lean heavily on Qualcomm for its phone efforts, but having an Intel offering could help them expand their reach.

For starters, Intel processors are quite a bit faster than ARM equivalents in many cases. A Intel Atom Windows Phone 8 handset from a vendor like Lenovo could certainly give some of the higher-end Android handsets a run for their money.

What do you think, would getting involved in the Windows Phone 8 world be a smart move for Intel or should they continue to push further into Android territory instead?