Intel Year End: Country manager adamant on growth in smart devices

Technology giant outlines plans for future inflow of technology.

KARACHI: Intel Pakistan Country Manager Naveed Siraj, while speaking to a group of journalists at the Intel Year End Conference 2014 in Karachi on Thursday, said that he hopes to bring the company’s own line of smart devices to Pakistan in 2015.

Intel Year End sessions recap key moments in the Information Technology (IT) industry, particularly in the Intel world, from the outgoing year and glance into the future by revealing its predictions for next year.

The California-based technology giant that manufactures semiconductor chips for computing devices termed 2014 a breakthrough year for the company and the IT industry as a whole.

Asia Pacific and Japan region was a major driver for significant change in 2014, according to Siraj.



“A good number of companies that performed well in the outgoing year were based in the Asia Pacific region,” he said. However, he didn’t share any statistics about the company’s Pakistani operations.

The maker of famous microprocessors series, the Pentium, introduced the next generation Intel Education Tablet and Intel classmate PC reference designs. The company kicked off 2014 with a target to have its chips in 40 million tablets by year end, according to the press release.

Intel had shipped more than 30 million tablets in the first three quarters of 2014 and was tracking more than 250 tablet designs in over 150 countries.

“In 2015, consumers will demand improved imaging and photography, longer battery life and greater level of responsiveness from device makers,” Siraj said.

Intel’s operations in Pakistan are limited to marketing but Siraj said he was hoping to bring the technology to the country. Responding to a question about Intel’s collaboration with the academia in research arena, he said the company is in the process of donating its ‘system on chip (SOC)’ to as many as 20 universities across Pakistan.

“SOC is a platform for future innovators who can utilise it to build new designs,” Siraj said.

The chief of Intel’s Pakistani arm, however, pressed for a need to look at IT and communication separately.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2014.

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