Intel, Nokia and Flash10

When it comes to partnerships we see two or more players getting together that can change the market or at least make it sit up and take notice.

We have the world's largest chip maker Intel teaming up with the world's largest mobile phone maker Nokia. This "technology collaboration" could deliver mobile computing products even beyond the existing smartphones, netbooks and notebooks. However, all they are saying today is collaboration.

But both companies added it was still too early to talk about product plans.
The deal gives Intel its first real breakthrough in the multi-billion dollar mobile-phone market.
The partnership will centre around several open-source mobile Linux software projects and Intel will acquire a licence from Nokia that is used in modem chips.

Intel's microprocessors are found in eight out of 10 personal computers, while Nokia boasts around a billion mobile customers. This partnership obviously pitches Atom chips against ARM chips and accelerate the adoption of smartphones in the world from its current 10% of market share to the majority of the market.

Far more exciting is the news that Adobe Flash10 is coming to the mobile world for most mobile operating systems later this year, including Google Android, Microsoft Windows Mobile, Nokia Symbian and Palm WebOS. However, no mention of Apple’s iPhone.
Developers will be able to get their hands on a beta version of Flash Player 10 mobile later this year.

Why is Flash10 such a big deal? Flash Player 10 will enable smartphones to offer a richer Internet browsing experience, support videos embedded on some websites and importantly enable web based applications and breaking the reliance on app stores and control.

Flash8 or Flash Lite has been available on mobile platforms but the new Flash Player 10 will bring an improved graphical and audio performance, across more mobile operating systems.

The big question is Apple who face so many challengers on so many fronts but continue to go a lone path. This could serious help the real contenders such as Android and Palm's WebOS.