Intel 'eating its own children' by ignoring low-end laptop space claims AMD

AMD senior director of mobility Kevin Lensing 'worried' Intel is damaging the market

Intel is "eating its own children" by ignoring the lower-priced end of the laptop space, Kevin Lensing, senior director of Mobility Solutions at rival computer and server components manufacturer AMD has claimed.

Lensing made the accusation in an interview with Ars Technica, arguing that in an effort to prioritise a growing tablet market, Intel is causing itself damage by ignoring the demand for low-price laptops - an area on which AMD is now planning to capitalise with its own brand of laptops priced between $400 (£262) and $700.

"You see people chasing the glory of the fruit company Apple and trying to go after that premium experience," said Lensing.

"You also see people chasing really low-cost PCs with Android... I'm worried - and I mean this - about the ecosystem forces chasing the two ends, because that meat of the market is what made the PC," he added, arguing that this sort of business model ignores what is still a strong demand for enterprise-ready, low to medium-priced laptops.

After all, we are still not at the point where an organisation can carry out its business just by using a tablet. For many, a mouse and keyboard are still very much part of the mobile office experience. AMD has therefore accused Intel of trying to look cool instead of think about which devices its customers need.

"I'm worried that a lot of that stuff going on at the low end is just straight up cannibalisation of perfectly good $400 to $500 notebook business, so it's just eating its own children. I don't think it's taking share from Android when it moves the notebook price point down," he said.

Lensing also argued that Intel has become aggressive in an effort to develop the cheapest processor, rather than the best one.

"As you go further down, what we've seen the past couple of years is that Intel has gotten far more aggressive in its strategies on that low end," he said.

"That used to be a place where we enjoyed our biggest market share. We're not looking forward to trying to design the cheapest possible processor; that is not the focus of our R&D.

"The focus of our R&D is better products for the mainstream market."

AMD is pinning its growth hopes on a combination of ARM servers and custom semi design as part of its recovery strategy under new CEO Lisa Su.