"We will have Centrino products, and we will have other notebooks that will not be Centrino" but include the Pentium-M, said Jim McDonnell, vice president of marketing in the personal systems group at Hewlett-Packard. HP's goal is to let customers decide what they want, he said. Sources familiar with Dell's plans said the company intends to focus its marketing on the Pentium-M and its attributes, which include longer battery life than the Pentium III-M or Pentium 4-M chip. Intel asserts that notebooks using the Pentium-M chip, which will debut at clock speeds between 900MHz and 1.6GHz, will run for up to six hours on a single charge of their internal batteries. The current norm is three hours to four hours. Dell plans to give customers the choice of whether to use Intel's module or one of its own Dell TrueMobile 802.11b modules -- thus forfeiting its ability to use Centrino as an overall brand. Toshiba, which already has its own dual 802.11a and 802.11b module, will also give customers a choice of Intel's or other wireless modules, sources familiar with its plans said. For its part, IBM plans to sell Centrino-branded notebooks, said sources close to the company. However, the company will offer an upgrade to include 802.11a. That upgrade cannot be labeled a Centrino. Analysts say that the mixed messaging could confuse some potential customers at first. "This is really a commercial product. I don't think it's that big of an issue to commercial IT buyers," said Alan Promisel, notebook analyst with IDC. "It's going to confuse consumers, however, because Intel isn't marketing Pentium-M as heavily as it is the Centrino brand. That is a risk for OEMs," or original equipment manufacturers. But Promisel asserts that most consumers who buy notebooks are not nearly as concerned with mobility and features like wireless networking as are business users at the moment. Instead, many consumers are buying larger, heavier and less expensive "desknote" machines that incorporate desktop Pentium 4 chips and 15-inch or larger screens. "If anything, all the marketing is going to raise awareness and get consumers to start thinking about wireless connectivity and real mobility, not just portability. That's the crux behind Centrino's value proposition," Promisel said. PC makers are also partially responsible for accurately explaining the differences between Pentium-M and Centrino notebooks, he added. "I do expect wireless demand to increase in the consumer segment based on the publicity that the Centrino launch is going to drum up," he said. Timing is everything
The root of Intel's Centrino dichotomy lies in the delay of its first wireless module. Initially, Intel planned to include a module that offered both 802.11a and 802.11b with its Centrino family. Bundling has often been a way for Intel to enter new markets, such as chipsets and PC graphics chips. But in December, the company delayed the dual-band module until later in the first half of 2003. In its place, Intel will insert a module that uses an 802.11b chip from Philips in the first wave of Centrino notebooks. Until Intel's module is released, manufacturers will have to go outside the Centrino family to add 802.11a or dual-band modules. "Anything else does not qualify because it hasn't gone through Intel's testing process," said Shannon Johnson, an Intel representative. "Centrino represents the best in class from Intel because it has been designed to work together and tested. We want to ensure a great user experience. Anything else that's been kind of put together -- we can't ensure it's been tested to the fullest." PC makers that don't use the Intel module could also stand to see higher development costs than those that do. Intel has performed thousands of hours of testing on its module, so it can ensure that a Centrino-branded notebook will work properly, the company said. The testing was meant to ensure compatibility among the module, the Pentium-M, the chipset and existing wireless services, said Mooly Eden, general manager of Intel's Israel design center, where the Pentium-M was designed. "We have developed (test and verification) chips whose only aim in life was to torture the rest of the system," Eden said. Meanwhile, the Pentium-M will become the predominant notebook chip for Intel by the end of the year, various Intel executives have said. The company will still supply its mobile Pentium 4 chips for notebooks, but they are likely to appear only in the consumer market, and even then in the cheaper models.
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