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April 21, 2003

Centrino: Trojan Horse for Future Cell Data

By Glenn Fleishman

Intel’s trying to become the life of the Wi-Fi party: My analysis of Intel’s Centrino plans appears in today’s Seattle Times. My thesis, in a nutshell, is that although putting 802.11b in a modern laptop isn’t a stroke of genius, Intel’s actual, stated goal (if you listen to them closely) is much clearer: to provide an end-to-end experience for purchasers of Centrino laptops (configuration, troubleshooting, connection) and to have a path for them to offer ever more advanced wireless technology in the same form factor to manufacturers who are already happy with the process.

You could see within a year or 18 months a Centrino offering, for instance, Wi-Fi (g or a/g) plus GPRS or a 3G flavor with Intel’s branding on the service. You might be buying Intel Centrino Service by Cingular or T-Mobile Centrino for Intel or whatever the combination of brands is.

But it would be a single brand promise and an end-to-end promise, too.

Right now, there’s a lot of finger pointing when you buy and try to configure a Wi-Fi adapter. Most of the time, it works. When it doesn’t, who do you complain to or even get tech support from? When Linksys and Orinoco cards I purchased didn’t work in a Sony laptop, I sent email to five different companies and received 15 to 20 suggestions. Fortunately, the last of these, which trickled in, had the solution (Wireless Zero Configuration was turned off).

In the same circumstance, if I had a Centrino laptop, I could call the laptop maker, and if I wasn’t happy with their help, Intel has a staffed Centrino support line I could call. Both tech support operations are supporting the entire chain. I’m not going to get (I hope) a cock and bull story about it being Microsoft’s fault, the driver’s fault, the hardware’s fault.

Let’s take one alternative, too: Dell is offering Broadcom’s g and a/g solutions under its own TrueMobile name. The g card is a zero-cost sidegrade from a Centrino system to an identical Pentium-M/855 system. If something goes wrong with this combination, I’m entirely reliant on Dell.

(Dell is selling a/g and g into the enterprise mostly. If you’re planning to upgrade your WLAN to g later in the year, buying a Centrino now might be foolhardy — and I’m guessing a lot of companies who have thoughts of g or a/g are holding off on laptop purchases until the second half when Intel plans to introduce these flavors.)

What Intel buys with Centrino is a combination of advertising and loyalty. They have to live up to their promise, though, in a more direct relationship with the end user than they’ve previously dared dream of.

Posted by Glennf at April 21, 2003 11:57 AM

Categories: Mainstream Media

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