ARM's CEO Warren East knows how to damn with faint praise after all he has hung around a British technology success story long enough.
When he was cornered at by Reuters hacks that Intel's new Medfield chip, which is Chipzilla's attempt to enter the smartphone and tablet markets, as 'roughly good enough' for the job. East added that he regarded Intel as a serious competitor, seriously and he did not even crack a smile when he said it.
Then hacks started to be specific and ask him questions like “will Intel ever be a leader in power efficiency, he revealed his true colours and snarled “No. Of course not.” But then he cranked up the faint praise again by added that Chipzilla will “have a lot more to offer."
In other words Medfield is pretty rough, but at least it will not blow up your phone. Intel will never be better than ARM, but at least it will have something to sell, rather than the piss-poor Atom. East added that Intel had taken some designs that were never meant for mobile phones and they've literally wrenched those designs and put them into a power performance space which is roughly good enough for mobile phones.
