Intel's New Image and Apple's Role

Much of the news surrounding Apple these days has Intel intimately involved. Intel Macs are widely expected to be announced soon at Macworld San Francisco.

Businessweek looks at Intel and their recent corporate shift which will be featured at CES next week.

Indeed, Intel does plan to change their corporate branding by changing their logo and spending $2.5 billion advertising and marketing blitz. Now led by Paul Otellini, Intel is shifting its focus from PCs alone to software and hardware "platforms" ranging from consumer electronics to health care.

Apple's role in this is also a departure for Intel:

For years, Grove and Barrett pooh-poohed Apple as a niche company whose products had sleek form, but nowhere near the function of computers with Intel's chips. Yet Otellini set about wooing Jobs almost from the start.

Otellini believes that Apple has been a front-runner in design and "as they start taking advantage of some of our lower-power products, that form factor will improve significantly. I think it will help drive a trend toward smaller, cheaper, cooler."