Yesterday we brought you news of a rumor that said HTC is currently in the process of working on an Intel based Android device that they’ll bring out in early 2012. That news item was automatically sent to Twitter, it caught the attention of Eldar Murtazin, the famous Editor of Mobile-Review, and he’s now revealed some additional information via several @ replies that you can see in the image below. Here’s the summary: Qualcomm is an investor in HTC, which explains why we’ve never seen an HTC device run anything other than Qualcomm silicon. Qualcomm will supply HTC with a custom made processor that they’ll likely not see to additional partners. Said processor will enable HTC to build a Windows 8 tablet. Now of course HTC isn’t going to confirm this, and Eldar isn’t always right, but you need to understand why this is pretty crazy stuff. Intel and Microsoft have had the tightest relationship the consumer electronics industry has ever seen, and now it’s dead. Intel is working with Google, ARM is working with Microsoft.
That begs the question, will Nokia enter the tablet space with their own Windows 8 device? They already tried to enter the PC space back in 2009 with a netbook that was severely underpowered and priced through the roof. It sold so poorly that they killed it without ever telling anyone. Windows 8 is different though. Nokia can leverage their design talent to come up with their own custom components, be it from Qualcomm, NVIDIA, ST-Ericsson, whoever, and make a tablet from the ground up. Don’t you think part of Nokia’s agreement with Microsoft for Windows Phone includes several as yet to be released details concerning Windows 8?
If Microsoft plans on taking the tablet space by competing with a full blown desktop operating system, but one that uses the same chips that today’s iPads and Honeycomb tablets use, then power to them.