Intel snaps up former Palm and Apple VP Mike Bell for its smartphone push
By Vlad Savov 
posted July 16th 2010 5:31AM
posted July 16th 2010 5:31AM
Intel hires former Palm exec as new VP for smartphones
Posted July 15, 2010
Intel announced today that we have hired Mike Bell-a veteran of both Palm and Apple-as vice president and director of Smartphone Product Development in the company's Ultra Mobility Group (UMG).
Bell is a technology industry veteran who has been part of the executive management team at Palm since 2007, most recently as the senior vice president of Product Development, responsible for all aspects of product strategy, development, and deployment.
Bell and his team were responsible for the Palm PRE and the Palm PIXI. Previously, Mike was a vice president with Apple where he worked from 1991 to 2007 and made significant contributions to the iMac, Apple TV, and iPhone programs.
In a note to UMG employees, UMG leader Anand Chandrasekher said that Bell will help build and lead a team to build breakthrough smartphone reference designs to accelerate Intel Architecture into the market. Bell will focus on delivering leadership products that advance Intel chips into smartphones, help drive new business growth and further cultivate Intel's global ecosystem relationships in this market segment.
Yes...
@Elton007 Engadget, why do you think (other than bad strategy) was the reason for Palm burning through cash? It wasn't R&D, it wasn't hardware costs, it was (wait for it)...LABOR. HP wanted this all along, those who they had convos with who didn't like their place in the company have moved on, plus probably 1-3 that HP actually planned on keeping.
Nice. Go Intel!
Yeah gooo
Goodbye, and welcome? Well with all the senior mgt leaving, HP may have trimmed the fat anyways. There always someone that can fill the role.
@8bit Too many people are leaving. I'd have to take all of this as less than encouraging news for those hoping for a revival of Palm's phones under HP, or even the future of WebOS on slates. I guess we'll have to wait and see...
MeeGo
Looking forward to this. Enough with Taiwanese plastic cheap phones designs.
@magadget
I agree, enough with the crapple
@magadget Taiwanese smartphone manufacturers...HTC is from Taiwan.
You're a dumbass
@Wesley
And HTC makes plastic cheap-looking phones for the most part... What don't you understand?
@maattp
The Nexus One, Evo, HD2, Droid Incredible, Droid Eris, Touch 2, Hero are all HTC. Maybe 4-5 years ago they were cheap and plasticky looking, but now, ill take a Nexus or, Evo, or HD2 over an iPhone any day.
Yes engadget the VP' s are responsible for all system and day to day trench development. We the system engineers just breath air , draw 500 foot pretty picture diagrams. Write all our plans on power points and pull 10 million dollars bonus checks
@Makali Say it isnt so!
Because he couldn't possibly take his team with him, that would be unpossible.
No surprise .. a lot of Intellectual Horsepower available from ex-Palm staff
@goseki But if Palm had all this talent, why did it produce phones that got pretty much zero traction in the marketplace? I think webOS is brilliant, but somehow you gotta reconcile all this supposed talent with the results...the proof is in the pudding, is it not?
@CRA1G no room in the market for a "new" OS .. without Apple's marketing the iPhone would have been in the same boat.
I'm predicting similar fate for WinPhone7 .. they do have a little more marketing clout than poor old Palm but its gonna take some doing to grab market share in the US .. vs Android and iOS (even BlackBerry OS). Internationally I doubt its going to do much at all.
Just as I predicted that no-one would buy a Palm outside the US.
MeeGo might do something but it has two massive backers one with deep pockets the other with 40+% of the market.
Maybe Nokia/Intel might snap up some of that talent? I certainly would be doing so if I were in charge of HR over in Espoo.
perhaps HP & Intel are working a deal together in the background.... "I give you him and you give me.....?"
bullshit!
Too many smart phones need to be sold with so few geeks to buy'em.
Competition is good. Will they ever roll out an Android device or will it be only Meego - I wonder. OTOH, if this splits the Android market, it will be good for the iPhone. Time will tell. I hope its not like the Kin/Palm story.
Android, Windows 7 Mo & now this. Nice. Please don't get stuck with only AT&T like Apple did,
Color me worried about WebOS...
@johnny005
Same here, still wish HTC could've bought them cuz id be all over a good looking, powerful webOS phone..
Hey Engadget, why don't you guys do a story about how Sarbanes/Oxley has destroyed any chance for innovators in the valley to follow in the footsteps of the giants of the industry and instead become cubicle drones for companies that will never release anything they design?
Cant wait for them to put a Core2Duo in my phone! Make it happen.
@rstoplabe14 Wow, now I have to down rank your comment twice.
@rhomaion
I did not mean to double post, anyways, i think they can to it, with that new 32nm process of theirs, get a dual core CPU of at least 1.2 GHz-1.5GHz, give it x86-64, and make it ULV and i think we got a good phone chip. I obviously did not mean the same C2D thats on my notebook right now, ill need to carry with a hip battery and a cord, but power similar to a low end notebook from about 3-5 years ago, and keep good battery life.
@rstoplabe14
I hope you mean, like you said, dual core CPU and not C2D, core2duo is a line, and its arch is now gone.
@SyntaxError
Yes I meant dual core CPU, what i meant was a dual core CPU with power like an entry level Core 2 Duo
Cant wait for them to put a Core2Duo in my phone! Make it happen.
Intel Inside ! FTW
Palm, hire me before I replace my Pre with an Evo next week!
I see Jobs announcing in the future that iPhone will switch to Intel so they can copy everyone else...but make it sound like it was his brainstorm.
(as the crowd groans loudly)
Not that he ever did THAT before.
SJ...Intel sucks...we have the velocity engine...bla bla bla...
Now we are on Intel and it is GREAT !
When Mike complete reads about the current state of Meego (the OS/platform and hardware capabilities), he is likely to spill coffee on his laptop!. Sorry!. It is that bad!. With Android and iOS being the leading platforms and progressing real fast forward, Windows7Phone being a "darkhorse" competitor, there is hardly any more room for a 4th guy .....
I suggest Intel head for the handheld gaming console market. There is only Nintendo and Sony to content with, so plenty of room to play and innovate.
@Fteo64
...and your opinion is based on your 1st hand impression of MeeGo? If anything I see WinPhone7, RIM and later iOS coming out bruised from this one. Unlike Android and MeeGo these other OSs will be pretty much restricted to a few devices. Also unlike MeeGo, WinPhone7 manufacturers are supposed to be the same ones which used to do WinMo and now do Android - major conflict of direction. Also while iOS has made large short-term gains, for the long-term it is a case of winning the battle and losing the war for them - but thats how Apple strategy works anyways.
I think Nokia's MeeGo strategy keeps making more and more sense but they must execute like there is no tomorrow (and there will be none if they don't). Like I always said they have the long-term done right, but never realized that they needed to bridge the short term. Maybe with Anssi Vanjoki in charge they will do it - 2011-2012 is the year to watch for Nokia and Intel collaboration.
A New Challenger Appears!
Looks like Intel wants in to the smartphone CPU market.
Looks like Google made the right choice with using a VM, if Intel ever produce anything decent, Android phone makers can just pop the new CPUs in, and all the apps will "Just work!".
@PinchofSalt I don't see them making phones directly... they are hardwired to turn silicon into processors... anything else is just reference material for the OEMs.
That being said: When you've spent 30 years having people building their equipment around you, and you are thrust into a situation where you are sticking your equipment into someone else's equipment, it would be nice to have someone who's passport's been stamped in Cellphoneland.
@PinchofSalt
1st they need to port and optimize the VM for the Intel CPUs. I dont think portability as a feature is the big advantage of going with Android especially since the multiple manufacturer UI layers just fragment it on top.
@naashak Do you know how WebOS and MeeGo are implemented on linux and how they would compare/contrast to the different Android UI on x86?
@naashak
That the advantage, you just have to port the VM, all apps that run on the VM don't have to be ported. The apps will "Just Work.™"
HP bought a ghost
Intel VP for smartphones? Huh? Was the position of DIsney VP for porn not available?
@Perspective Spot on!
Intel needs to make a mobile chip that doesn't drain the battery. They can't really compete at the moment.
@rotarydialz
Thats medfield read the roadmaps baby.
What makes anyone think that this guy matters? After all, people praised webOS, but never the hardware...
every1 wants in the smartphone market. Over saturated maybe? Hardware, Hardware, Hardware new Hardware from Palm!
Has anyone else noted that the picture at the top of the article is photoshopped?
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/picture-7-220x300.png
Just pointing it out, would expect something a bit better from Engadget...
This guy's a bold-faced traitor.
Left Apple in 2007 right after a meeting of top Apple execs and managers revealed Apple's 5-year roadmap, taking that proprietary info to Palm, a major Apple competitor at the time.
Now he's jumping ship to Intel.
Maybe next he'll move to China and work for a knock-off company, producing the ayePhone?
I hope a raccoon bites him on the ankle on the way to work on Monday.