世界上有两种CEO，一种喜欢聚光灯下的感觉，另一种则截然相反。英特尔（Intel）首席执行官保罗•奥特里尼就属于后者。不过今年一月当他出席拉斯维加斯的消费电子展（Consumer Electronics Show），站在数千名观众面前时，奥特里尼似乎也并不介意万众瞩目的感觉。那是一个史蒂夫•乔布斯式的时刻。他从口袋里掏出一个闪闪发亮的四英寸智能手机，展示给在场的观众。这个设备有很多特殊功能，包括前后摄像头和用于输出高分辨率视频的HDMI接口。

    不过这款手机上最让人惊叹的部分却是观众用肉眼看不到的，那就是它里面安装的Medfield英特尔微处理器。这款手机目前还没有上市，只是英特尔内部组装的一台原型机，但它还是让许多人欢欣雀跃，因为迁延多年，走了很多弯路之后，英特尔似乎终于推出了一款能在手机领域立足生根的产品。

    奥特里尼在消费电子展上发表讲话后，本周在英特尔的硅谷总部接受了《财富》杂志（Fortune）的采访。他对记者说：“我难道不希望早一点进入智能手机领域吗？我也希望。但我们今天才进入这个领域，这有什么问题吗？我不觉得。我认为这个领域还在起步阶段。我们仍然有机会重新定义移动计算。而且我不认为这个行业的其它玩家拥有这种潜力。”

    年收入达540亿美元的英特尔是世界最大的芯片制造商，员工超过100,000名，其中包括半导体行业一些最杰出的人才。但在智能手机芯片方面，英特尔至今未立寸功。目前市场上还没有任何一款搭载英特尔处理器的手机。这可不是个小问题，目前全世界对智能手机和平板电脑的使用日益递增，人们越来越喜欢用它们来完成过去靠台式机或笔机本电脑才能完成的工作。

    英特尔在生产强大的高性能芯片方面具有非常尖端的技术，但这反过来却成了英特尔进军移动领域的障碍，因为智能手机芯片需要的是低功率的处理器。一年半以前，奥特里尼认为英特尔需要一些在手机行业拥有坚实从业经验的管理人员和工程师，于是他聘用了曾在Palm和苹果（Apple）任职的迈克•贝尔。贝尔曾对苹果iPhone的研发做出过贡献，现在他是英特尔新成立的移动通信集团的负责人之一，负责设计或参考设计原型机，以向手机厂商展示英特尔在移动通信方面的能力。英特尔在消费电子展上展出的手机使用了自家的Medfield芯片，它的内部代号为FFRD，是Form Factor Reference Design（外型因素参考设计）的缩写，可见起个拉风的产品代号确实不是英特尔的长项。这台原型机为今年联想（Lenovo）和摩托罗拉（Motorola）等厂商发布搭载英特尔芯片的设备铺平了道路。

    奥特里尼知道，他要做的不仅仅是聘用几个关键人员而已。2010年8月，英特尔斥资14亿美元收购了德国芯片制造商英飞凌（Infineon）的无线业务，使英特尔在基带处理器领域有了立足点（基带处理器是用来管理智能手机3G无线电通信功能的元件），此次收购也给英特尔带来了大约4,000名熟悉移动设备的员工。

    There are two kinds of CEOs: Those who love the spotlight and those who hate it. Paul Otellini, chief executive officer of Intel, falls into the latter category. But in January, as he stood in front of several thousand people at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Otellini didn't seem to mind the attention. In a Steve Jobs-like moment, he pulled a shiny four-inch smartphone out of his pocket and held it up for the audience to see. The device had plenty of bells and whistles, including front- and back-facing cameras and an HDMI output for high-resolution video.

    Most striking of all was what the audience couldn't see: the tiny Intel microprocessor -- called Medfield -- inside. The phone wasn't for sale (it was a prototype Intel had put together), but the crowd cheered anyway. After years of delays and missteps, Intel, it seemed, finally had a viable product to show for its efforts in mobile phones.

    "Would I have liked to be earlier? Yes," Otellini told Fortune in an interview at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters the week after his Las Vegas keynote. "Do I think this is a problem entering today? No, I think we're in the beginning of this thing. We have the opportunity to redefine what computing means in your pocket, and I don't see any other player in the industry with that potential."

    Intel (INTC), with $54 billion in annual revenue, is the biggest chipmaker in the world. It employs 100,000 workers, including some of the brightest minds in the semiconductor industry. But when it comes to powering mobile phones, Intel is nowhere. Not a single commercially available mobile phone uses an Intel processor, and that's no small problem, since much of the world is increasingly using mobile phones -- and tablets -- to do tasks once performed on desktops and laptops.

    Intel's prowess in building brawny, high-powered chips has been its biggest obstacle to cracking the mobile world, which requires low-power processors. A year and a half ago Otellini decided that Intel needed managers and engineers with hard-core mobile experience. He hired Mike Bell, an executive from Palm and Apple (AAPL) who had contributed to the development of the iPhone. Bell, who now co-leads Intel's newly formed mobile and communications group, was charged with building a prototype, or reference design, that would show manufacturers what Intel could do in mobile. The device, which used the Medfield chip, became known internally as FFRD, short for form factor reference design (sexy code names are not Intel's forte), and it paved the way for manufacturers like Lenovo and Motorola (MMI) to commit to launching Intel-powered devices sometime this year.

    But Otellini knew he needed to do more than make a few key hires. In August 2010, Intel bought the wireless-solutions business from German chipmaker Infineon for $1.4 billion, giving Intel a foothold in baseband processors (a component that manages the 3G radio functions in a smartphone) and about 4,000 employees who know mobile devices.

    对于奥特里尼来说，努力发展无线业务不仅仅是为了使收入多样化，也不仅仅是为了要让公司进入一个正在成长的市场（当然这也是其中的一部分原因），而是为了救赎。2005年成为CEO后，奥特里尼一直固执地坚持英特尔可以基于公司历史上著名的x86架构开发自己的芯片，而不是像大多数竞争对手一样使用英国ARM公司授权的芯片技术。但直到现在，他的赌注还没有见到成效。英特尔曾宣称它的Moorestown芯片将在2011年初植入智能手机，但现在这种芯片主要只是用于机器人技术和上网本。

    讽刺的是，英特尔以前也曾为早期的智能手机和Palm Treo等PDA设备生产ARM处理器。但2006年，奥特里尼却把整条移动产品生产线（称做Xscale）以6亿美元的价格卖给了迈威科技（Marvell Technology Group），从事实上切断了英特尔进军移动设备领域的通道。英特尔在移动领域的失策之举还不止这一件。2010年，奥特里尼决定与诺基亚（Nokia）合作，开发基于Linux的MeeGo操作系统。不过一年后，诺基亚就抛弃了这个项目，转而选择了微软（Microsoft）的Windows Phone。而英特尔也改弦更张，在九月份选择了一个新的合作伙伴——谷歌（Google）。英特尔的软件开发者们付出了大量努力，以确保谷歌的安卓（Android）系统可以在英特尔芯片上完美运行。

    与世界上增长最快的手机操作系统合作，这的确是奥特里尼一个明智之举（奥特里尼从2004年起就是谷歌董事会的成员），但英特尔的欠帐显然还有很多。高宏乐通集团（Cowen Group）分析师拉杰•希思指出：“英特尔让人感觉他们承诺的太多，做到的太少。”

    与此同时，行业内的其他公司也在不断进步。目前，市场上90%的智能手机使用的是依托于ARM架构的微处理器。其中高通公司（Qualcomm）独自揽下了51%的市场份额。

    奥特里尼坚称，MeeGo系统的失败只让英特尔耽误了两个月的时间而已，而在芯片生产技术方面，英特尔要领先竞争对手大概三年。

    英特尔的9个半导体工厂加在一起，每秒钟可生产100亿个晶体管。英特尔最新、最大的加工工厂名叫D1X，座落于俄勒冈州的希斯波洛，位于波特兰以西约20英里处。D1X也是俄勒冈州有史以来最大的建设项目之一。这座先进的工厂将于明年开工，届时它也将成为全球第一家生产14纳米芯片的工厂。该厂投资将达到50亿美元以上。

    根据摩尔定理，一个芯片的晶体管数量大约每24个月就会翻一番。这说明芯片生产是一项耗资巨大的业务，需要英特尔不断投资新的生产技术，建设新的生产设施。但是除了PC领域之外，英特尔的生产技术优势能帮上它多少忙，现在还不清楚。比如，说起先进程度，那些生产ARM处理器的厂商所使用的生产技术并不如英特尔Medfield芯片的生产技术，但这并不妨碍他们从英特尔的碗里抢饭吃。投资银行Piper Jaffray的分析师古斯•理查德指出：“英特尔试图把过去在PC领域给它带来过成功的那套工具原封不动地搬到移动业务上，但是这并不起作用。”

    For Otellini, getting it right in wireless isn't just about diversifying revenue or driving the company into growing markets (though that's part of it). Otellini's mobile gambit is about redemption. Since becoming CEO in 2005, Otellini has stubbornly insisted that Intel could develop its own chips based on x86, the company's historic microprocessor design standard, instead of licensing technology from the British company ARM Holdings, as most of his competitors have. So far his bet hasn't paid off. The company proclaimed that its Moorestown system-on-a-chip would be in smartphones in early 2011, but instead it is mostly used in robotics and netbooks.

    Ironically, Intel used to manufacture ARM processors for early smartphones and PDAs like the Palm Treo. But in 2006, Otellini sold its entire mobile product line, called XScale, to Marvell Technology Group for $600 million, essentially cutting off its access to mobile devices. And that wasn't Intel's only questionable move in mobile. In 2010, Otellini decided to partner with Nokia to develop MeeGo, a Linux-based operating system. A year later Nokia (NOK) ditched the project and opted to adopt Microsoft's (MSFT) Windows Phone instead. Intel changed course and in September picked a new partner: Google (GOOG). Intel software developers worked to make sure that Android could run on the company's chips without a glitch.

    Pairing up with the world's fastest-growing operating system is a smart move for Otellini (who has been on Google's board since 2004). But there's little question Intel has a lot of catching up to do. "The perception is that they've overpromised and underdelivered," says Raj Seth, an analyst with Cowen Group.

    Meanwhile the rest of the industry has moved ahead. Processors designed using ARM Holdings' technology now power 90% of smartphones. Qualcomm (QCOM) leads the pack with 51% market share (see chart below).

    Otellini insists the MeeGo debacle put Intel behind schedule by just two months. And when it comes to chip-manufacturing technology, he contends that Intel is about three years ahead of the competition.

    Intel's nine semiconductor factories churn out a collective 10 billion transistors per second. Its latest and greatest fabrication plant, called D1X, is in Hillsboro, Ore., about 20 miles west of Portland. D1X is one of the biggest construction projects in Oregon's history. When the state-of-the-art facility opens next year, it will be the first 14-nanometer factory in the world. And it will have cost Intel upwards of $5 billion.

    Keeping up with Moore's law, which states that the number of transistors incorporated in a chip will approximately double every 24 months, is an expensive business that requires Intel to constantly invest in new manufacturing technologies and build new plants. But beyond the PC, it's not clear how much that manufacturing lead is helping. The biggest facilities making ARM-designed processors today are based on a less advanced process than the one Intel uses to make its Medfield chip, for example, yet that hasn't stopped the competition from eating Intel's lunch. "Intel has tried to bring the same tools that have made it successful in the past to mobile, and it's not working," says Piper Jaffray analyst Gus Richard.

    PC业务现在仍然占据了英特尔总收入的66%，尽管奥特里尼正在积极向移动市场推进，但同时他也在推广所谓的“超级本”，来给英特尔的电脑业务注入生机。超级本是最新的一种可以迅速开机的轻型笔记本（也就是MacBook Air的PC版）。但毫无疑问，移动才是最具备增长空间的领域。研究机构Linley Group指出，到2015年，智能手机芯片市场将增长40%，达到299亿美元。

    奥特里尼表示，他预计到2015年，英特尔芯片将占据平板电脑市场的50%，智能手机市场的20%。这是一个雄心勃勃的目标，但也并非不可能实现。英特尔的牌子够大，资金也够雄厚，有能力最终将顾客拉到它的阵营里，复制它在2005年的成。当时，连苹果都使用了它的酷睿双核处理器。英特尔的竞争对手ARM公司的CEO沃伦•伊斯特坦承：“他们的实力非常雄厚，而且有很多优秀的人才。”

    “这是一场马拉松，不是一场冲刺，”奥特里尼说。“英特尔在核心业务上有足够的发展动力，也有足够的资产，我们会让公司的移动业务走上正轨，而且我们会在长期内取得成功。”不过如果他错了，而且英特尔在短期内找不到进军智能手机的法子，那么奥特里尼可能会再次成为大家关注的焦点，但却不是因为什么好事。

    译者：朴成奎

    PCs still account for 66% of Intel's revenue, and while Otellini is making an aggressive push in mobile, he's also trying to breathe new life into Intel's computer business by promoting ultrabooks, the latest breed of lightweight, instant-on laptops (a.k.a. the PC version of a MacBook Air). But there's no doubt that mobile is where the real growth is. The market for mobile-phone chips will grow 40%, to $29.9 billion, by 2015, according to the Linley Group, a research firm.

    Otellini has said that he expects to have Intel chips in 50% of the tablet market and 20% of smartphones by 2015. It's an ambitious goal, but not impossible. The company is big enough and rich enough to eventually convert customers to its camp -- as it did in 2005, getting Apple to use its Core Duo chip. "They're very well resourced," concedes Warren East, CEO of rival ARM Holdings (ARMH), "and they have a bunch of clever people."

    "This is a marathon, not a sprint," says Otellini. "Intel has enough momentum in our core business and enough assets that we're going to do this right. And we're going to win in the long run." If he's wrong, and Intel can't find its way into smartphones soon, Otellini may find himself back in the spotlight -- for all the wrong reasons.