Stefan Mileschin

The PC will be saved from its much predicted doom by the glorious power-saving ability of the Haswell chip, at least according to the prophecy of Intel's chief technology officer Justin Rattner.

He said that all that is needed for the PC industry to be swept out of its doldrums is for the Haswell Messiah to arrive to herald a glorious new golden age for the PC. Well words to that effect at least.

Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com at the Open Innovation 2.0 conference in Dublin, Rattner has predicted that the arrival of the next generation of PC devices that will run energy frugal processors like Intel's forthcoming Haswell chip will lead to a rebound in demand for PC devices, like ultrabooks and hybrids.

He said that the new PCs will be so versatile that consumers' faith in PCs will be restored, at least in terms of performance versus standalone iOS and Android tablets.

Rattner said that modern tablet computing served to disrupt PC sales, resulting in reports from Gartner and GfK sounding the death knell for PCs and celebrating the triumph of mobile devices.

While he did acknowledge the rise of mobile devices, Rattner believes the PC market will return to growth as more powerful but lighter and more energy-efficient models based on Intel's Haswell chip architecture later this year.

He said that the PC itself is far from dead although lots of people have declared it dead so many times.

People will be saying that they can get an Ultrabook with a keyboard which can be broken off to form a high-performance tablet, then what is the point of a stand-alone tablet, Ratner wondered.

http://news.techeye.net/chips/pc-wil...ell-says-intel