Intel’s CEO on Infineon, McAfee, and XScale (INTC, MFE)

Intel’s

CEO, Paul Otellini recently spoke with FOX Business Network’s Liz Claman about the company’s recent purchase of Infineon’s wireless business, saying, “This was the best technology we could find at the right price.” On Steve Jobs’ reaction to the buyout, Mr. Otellini said, “Steve was very happy. The industry was a buzz that this business unit was on the market and there were a number of competing companies for it. I think they are very happy that Intel won the bid.” He continued, “The key thing is the technology they have today, the customer connections they have today, and where the technology in general is going. We look forward to a period in the not so distant future where all of these functions can be on a single chip. Intel has great capabilities and applications processors today, but bringing in the capabilities for 3G and ultimately LTE onto the chip, that makes a lot of sense to us from an economic and power standpoint.” When asked how McAfee will be integrated into Intel’s products, he noted, “The first products will be things we have worked on before the acquisition discussions, which will come into the PC platforms next year. We will take the combination of hardware based security that Intel already produces and enhance that with software capability from McAfee. That will only get better in PC’s over time.” He continued, “Then what we would like to do is drive that same capability not just into Smartphone’s, but also anything that is going to get smart and get connected; your television, your cars, are all going to have internet connections. You want that same protection. We call this a third pillar of computing. We have energy efficient performance, we have connectivity, and now we’ve got security.” When asked about the sale of XScale only to reenter the wireless realm with their purchase of Infineon, Mr. Otellini said, “It’s 180 degrees from what we sold. What we had was an XScale based applications processor business with a little bit of comms technology in it. Today what we are picking up is a big comms business with the baseband technology the protocol stack and all the software that goes with it. People want the capability of Intel architecture for their apps processor and the capability of Intel Silicon and the combination of those was something we didn’t have in the divestiture of the XScale business four or five years ago.” For more great research like this, as well as how to play it through options…please visit

and

.