The PC's past and Intel's future

(Credit: Cooler Master)

Is the desktop PC on the road to oblivion? Well, let's put it this way: it's hardly an Intel priority anymore.

Yeah, desktops will still be around in 2016, but it's not something Intel -- which makes most PC processors -- thinks about a lot.

Survival in the age of the big-screen smartphone and tablet is what Intel thinks about.

A recent 75-page study from Goldman Sachs titled "Clash of the Titans" puts it, rather delicately, this way: "We believe the ongoing share shift in consumer computing toward smartphones and tablets and away from traditional PCs will be negative for Intel."

Of course, Intel has no intention of fulfilling analysts' dire prophecies. So, it has a newfound laserlike focus on mobile for its "client," aka PC, business.

And Intel's mobile future can pretty much be reduced to two code names: "Broadwell" and "Bay Trail."

Let's look at Broadwell first.

"With Broadwell there won't be a desktop update. Broadwell is focused on mobile," said a source whose company sells PCs in the U.S. and who gets briefed by Intel on future processor road maps.

That source calls Broadwell -- due in 2014 -- a "half tick," referring to Intel's Tick-Tock model for microarchitectural changes.

The half that's been left out is, basically, the desktop. Of course, a PC vendor co... [Read more]