Intel Atom’s Next Stop-Android Smartphones

Intel is looking to include their Atom microprocessors, traditionally reserved for netbooks, in upcoming Android OS smartphones. Intel already has Android running on Atom-based smartphones and certain customers are interested in using it, said Renee James, general manager of Intel’s software and services group, on the sidelines of the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in Beijing . She did not provide further details of the project.

“Intel is enabling all OSes for Atom phones,” James said.

The move is part of Intel’s aim to further drive its Atom microprocessors into smartphones, a market dominated by chips from Arm Holdings. Software has to be made specifically for the architecture of a microprocessor. Intel builds chips on the x86 architecture, while Arm chips are based on RISC (reduced instruction set computer).

Google originally designed Android to be used on common mobile phone processors made with Arm technology, but since Android is open-source software, other companies have changed it so it can be used with other chips.

Acer, the world’s second-largest PC vendor, ported Android to netbooks based on Atom microprocessors last year. MIPS Technologies, which sells its own chips based on the MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipeline Stages) architecture, ported Android for use in a range of devices that use MIPS chips, including set-top boxes, digital picture frames and home media centers.

To compete with Qualcomm’s Snapdraggon processor, which will debut soon on several phones from HTC and Samsung, Intel is seeing the near future by narrowing the gap between smartphone and netbook processing..intel wants to get update with new Gadget and Gizmos..

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Risks in Outsourcing Software Development

IT Industry has been one of the drivers of change in service sector. The evolution has also been rapid with practices and beliefs of the industry, especially in the field of IT solutions and services, custom software solutions and software application development. The new era began with the rise of outsourcing and many custom software development providers mushroomed in various low-cost IT destinations. Outsourcing of software development has many specific risks that should be addressed before entering into this model. Some of them are as below:

  • Information Security
  • Lack of proximity to staff
  • Uncertain Output
  • Increased complexity of management

Information Security: Over the period of years, software development companies in India and other such outsourcing destinations have experienced growing concern of their clients in security of their information, especially in custom software development services model. The first thing that custom software development provider tends to assure a client in is the secure handling of essential information about client’s core business process. Unfortunately providing a total security is difficult task.

Lack of proximity to staff: In in-house software development, the developers’ team has constant and easy access to all the employees involved in the software project. However, in case of outsourcing software development, especially in offshore model, it is inevitable to specify technical requirements in detail and constantly update them. This increases technical and management overhead.

Uncertain Output: While the custom software solutions provider can have some guarantees of payment by way of contract, the client is uncertain about the deliverable’s. The delivered software can meet all the technical requirements, and in the same time it might turn out to be obsolete, or do not support some important technologies and standards that appeared during the development period. A sudden bankruptcy, changes in local or foreign legislation, political instability and other factor endanger provider’s income as well.

Increased complexity of management: Outsourcing is considered to be a solution to decrease complexity of management of the IT functions. But often management of outsourced software development project suffers from a bad judgment, over-expectations from the Software Solution provider

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