Intel opens up app store framework for netbooks

Intel is working on expanding the range of the Atom processor with an application store and more hardware.

In his keynote at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco, Intel president Paul Otellini said that the success of Atom-powered netbooks outpaced both the Apple iPhone and the Nintendo Wii.

The company is now setting up an applications store to support this and has signed up Acer, Asus and Dell under the new framework.

“An important piece of this is an apps store framework,” Otellini said.

“Users are increasingly comfortable buying their applications from app stores and many of our customers already host apps stores and want to host more. So what we're working on is a framework to allow customers to do that.”

On the operating system front Intel is setting up optimisation programs for its Atom and Moblin operating systems with Microsoft and Adobe and hopes to get Java FX shortly. Intel will also be releasing SDKs to help developers port programs to the Atom platform.

In addition, the Intel Atom Developer Program will aim to port more software to a whole range of Atom devices, from mobile phones to consumer electronics, he said.

However, AMD is taking the approach that the netbook market is not such a good deal. In an interview with v3.co.uk, Patrick Moorhead, vice president of advanced marketing at AMD, said that buyers were recognising that netbooks were not such good deal compared to portable laptops.

“We took a lot of heat for not jumping into netbooks,” he said.

“But we saw that for an extra £50-£100 [$94-$188] you could get a real PC experience. Five times the graphics performance for example.”

The company's ultra-thin chipset now had 10 OEMs signed up with 20 models in production.