Forbes, who received an email from Intel, reports:

It’s an announcement with layers of ramifications, but it’s certainly not a death bell. The tried-and-true tower PC is a fixture among business and home users alike. While companies like Dell and HP have traditionally relied on Intel for motherboards in their low-to-mid-range desktops, there are several other companies happy to carry the torch. Just ask any power user or gaming enthusiast if they think ASUS or MSI will be elated to hear this news.

This is a forward-thinking move for Intel, who also said “The internal talent and experience of twenty years in the boards business…is being redistributed to address emerging new form factors.” Those form factors are springing up from all corners, inspired by Windows 8 and consumers shifting their needs to devices that serve multiple purposes in multiple environments. Microsoft‘s Surface Pro and the TAICHI from ASUS are perfect examples of where the post-PC market is heading.

In other news, Intel has declared d a 22.5 cents-per-share (90 cents-per-share on an annual basis) quarterly dividend on the company’s common stock. It will be payable on March 1 to stockholders of record on February 7.

CEO Paul Otellini said, “With the payout of this quarterly dividend, Intel’s dividend and stock buyback program will have returned approximately $119 billion to stockholders since the program’s inception. This is a testament to our commitment to return cash to our stockholders as we continue to generate strong cash flow driven by the combination of new products and design wins from the lowest power portable devices to the most powerful data center servers.”

Citing unnamed “people familiar with [Intel's] plans,” the journal reports that the new cable service might be available by mid or late 2013.

Content negotiations with cable companies are rumored to have been a stumbling block for Apple’s HDTV device as well. In September 2012 it became clear that a fall launch of the Apple TV set would not pan out. Cable companies were rumored to be insisting that Apple devices be rented to consumers through cable companies, and that they have a hand in the development of the software running on the device – a point on which Apple almost certainly won’t budge.

For Intel, the holdup could be the company’s plans to offer TV channel subscriptions a la carte, rather than exclusively in bundles. Cable companies have enjoyed content monopolies for years, shoring up less-viewed channels and niche programming with the package deals. By once again preventing cable TV from catching up to technology, the companies risk losing out to a burgeoning world of content networks and studios popping up online.

Intel announced today that its Atom S1200 is the world’s first 6-watt server-class processor. It’s a system on-chip processor that features lower-power levels, error code correction, 64-bit support and virtualization technologies.

“The data center continues to evolve into unique segments and Intel continues to be a leader in these transitions,” said Diane Bryant, vice president and general manager of the Datacenter and Connected Systems Group at Intel. “We recognized several years ago the need for a new breed of high-density, energy-efficient servers and other datacenter equipment. Today, we are delivering the industry’s only 6-watt SoC that has key datacenter features, continuing our commitment to help lead these segments.”

As for the processor itself, it will feature two physical cores and total of four threads enabled with Intel’s Hyper-Threading technology. It also supports up to 8GB of DDR3 RAM and eight lanes of PCI Express 2.0 devices. As for x86 software, the new processors will continue to support legacy applications that are still used in datacenters today.

The new Atom processors are just the start for low-power servers. Intel is now working on an Atom successor named Avoton that will be available next year. It will feature even further SoC capabilities and use Intel’s 3D Tri-Gate 22nm transistors.

As for those who prefer Intel’s Xeon processors, the company will be out with a new version of its most popular server processor as well. The new Xeons will be based on the company’s Haswell architecture and feature new energy-saving options.

Customers can start ordering the new Atom S1200 processor today starting at $54 in quantities of 1,000. Find more information here.

The board of directors will conduct a process of choosing the person or people to fill his roles. The board will look inside and outside of the company.

“I’ve been privileged to lead one of the world’s greatest companies,” Otellini said. “After almost four decades with the company and eight years as CEO, it’s time to move on and transfer Intel’s helm to a new generation of leadership.”

Under Otellini’s tenure as CEO, the company generated $107 billion in cash from operations, made $23.5 billion in dividend payments, and increased the quarterly dividend 181%. From the end of 2005 through the end of 2011, the company achieved record revenue and net income.

“Paul Otellini has been a very strong leader, only the fifth CEO in the company’s great 45-year history, and one who has managed the company through challenging times and market transitions,” said Andy Bryant, chairman of the board. “The board is grateful for his innumerable contributions to the company and his distinguished tenure as CEO over the last eight years.”

“I look forward to working with Andy, the board and the management team during the six-month transition period, and to being available as an advisor to management after retiring as CEO,” said Otellini.

Intel also announced that its board has approved the promotion of three senior executives – Renee James, head of Intel’s software business; Brian Krzanich, chief operating officer and head of worldwide manufacturing; and Stacy Smith, chief financial officer and director of corporate strategy – to executive vice president.

Bloomberg reports that Intel CEO Paul Otellini recently spoke to employees in Taiwan about Windows 8. The CEO reportedly said that Windows 8 isn’t ready for release according to a person who was in attendance. If Windows 8 truly isn’t ready, the release could turn into a fiasco similar to the debacle that was Windows Vista.

Still, Otellini was reportedly optimistic about the future of the company. He noted that processor sales were down due to lackluster demands for PCs, but he expected the market to grow in 2013. He also said that the company will not have to lay off workers.

Intel has been pushing a little into the mobile market, but the company is still primarily dedicated to the desktop computing scene. Intel processors can be found in just about every pre-built Windows PC with enthusiast PC builders also turning to the company for their top-of-the-line i7 CPUs.

The company may seem some success late this year and early next year as its processors will be used in a variety of Windows 8 tablets. Microsoft’s Surface tablet will launch with an ARM-based CPU this year, but next year’s Windows 8 Pro Surface will feature an Intel-based CPU. Other tablet manufacturers are also turning to Intel to power their mobile experience.

It’s safe to say that Intel should be fine going into next year. They are moving into mobile, and Intel’s chips have been historically better than the competitions. The only problem they will have going forward is reducing the price of their CPUs. Otellini’s comments, however, add more anxiety to the already worrisome launch of Windows 8.

Netbook News met with the VP of Intel’s Architecture Group, Navin Shenoy, before the Ultrabook Symposium started earlier this week. He revealed some interesting things about the Ultrabook brand that might get some people pretty excited including a touch-screen enabled Ultrabook built especially for Windows 8.

The exciting news from Shenoy is that Intel is supporting Windows 8 in a big way. There will be 40 Ultrabooks that support Windows 8 and they will all be releasing in Q4. What’s even better is that these Ultrabooks will have touchscreens to fully take advantage of the touch-centric Windows 8 operating system.

Including the 40 Windows 8 machines coming out this year, Shenoy says that there are now 140 Ultrabook designs. Amazingly enough, only 35 of those designs have reached the public so far. With 105 designs not out yet, Intel has a chance to push out more unique designs that appeal to every type of consumer. The launch of Windows 8 will unleash 40 more designs, but I’m interested in seeing what other secrets the Ultrabook line is hiding.

Intel will finally be competitively pricing the Ultrabook. The first wave of Ultrabooks were in the $900 range and that’s ridiculous, even by MacBook Air standards. The next wave of Ultrabooks, hitting next month, will mostly be under the very affordable $700 price range.

What may help contribute to that price drop is Intel’s next-generation processor, codenamed Haswell. Borrowing from the system-on-a-chip technology that powers smartphones and tablets, Haswell will be the first SoC processor for PCs. If everything goes according to plan, that means a more energy efficient, and hopefully cheaper, Ultrabook is on the horizon.

New Ultrabooks coupled with the launch of Windows 8 has a lot of potential for Intel. They’re making a bet and it could pay off handsomely. On the other hand, Windows 8 could be a disaster and the Ultrabook line could take a massive hit for coming out too early on the unproven OS. It will be interesting to watch how the market reacts to Windows 8 and Ultrabooks come October and November.

Here are the highlights from Intel regarding the new Ultrabook:

* The next wave of Ultrabook devices powered by 3rd generation Intel Core processors is more responsive and offers enhanced security in a choice of designs.

* Intel announced agreements with Cando, HannsTouch, TPK and Wintek to ensure capacity of touch technology for the expected growth of touch-enabled Ultrabook convertible designs.

* New Ultrabook systems offer enhanced security with Intel Anti-Theft technology built in and free, limited-time service subscriptions out of the box from Absolute Software, McAfee, Norton and Intel in select global markets.

* Bringing the best of Intel technology to mobile devices with three Intel-based smartphones now available from Lava International, Lenovo and Orange; 20 tablet design wins based on the Intel Atom SoC, codenamed “Clover Trail,” designed for Microsoft Windows 8.

Intel Corporation’s Senior Vice President Tom Kilroy introduced the new Ultrabooks at a keynote address in Taipei and here are a few things he had to say:

“Our life experiences are defined by our senses — by what we see, hear and touch,”

“These human senses are also at the foundation of Intel’s vision for the Ultrabook to deliver a no-compromise, must-have computing experience.”

“Today, thanks to the work of the industry at-large, we are one step closer to meeting that vision with the arrival of the next wave of 3rd generation Intel Core processor-powered devices. The innovation must continue as we move to touch-based Ultrabook convertible designs, and in the future aim to give them and other devices senses, making our interaction with them natural and intuitive.”

“Thank you to our partners here in Taiwan and the computing industry at-large for the unprecedented innovation to bring the Ultrabook to life in such a short time,”

There was no mention of exactly when these new Ultrabooks will available in the United States, but I would bet we’ll be seeing them before the holidays. For more information about Intel’s new Core VPro processors follow this link.

The new program is in response to ever increasing customer demand for denser more energy-efficient data solutions. Dell has been experimenting with ARM-based solution for over two years and sees utility for them in front-end and Hadoop environments. The program will develop ARM-based software and verify findings through strategic partnerships with a small number of customers.

A key component of ARM-based solutions is that they allow individual manufacturers to personalize chip design. With the popularity of ARM will come the need for companies like Intel to adapt to stay relevant in their current position, supplying chips to manufacturers. The change obviously wont happen overnight, but it probably does cause chip manufacturers to take notice.

Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of Server Solutions at Dell comments on the ARM-based initiative:

“Dell has a long history of addressing customer needs by delivering relevant innovation across the server portfolio and within its Data Center Solutions business. Today Dell is delivering this same innovation focus to the ARM server market, working hand-in-hand with customers and the community to enable development and testing of workloads for leading-edge hyperscale environments. We recognize the market potential for ARM servers, and with our experience and understanding of the market, are enabling developers with the right systems and access for the current state of the ARM server market maturity.”

We’ll have to see what comes out of these new partnerships. It sounds like ARM-based technology is in huge demand. As we require big data centers to manage more and more information, efficiency and cost become larger issues. Small reductions in manufacturing and development can lead to big savings overall.

All of the devices will utilize the upcoming “Clover Trail” atom chip from Intel. Clover Trail is a dual-core Atom design based processor with 32-nanometer process technology. Hybrid designs are expected that utilize Intel’s “Ivy Bridge”, but this is more on the “just a rumor” side of speculation, as sources have not commented on the validity of these claims.

Windows 8 will be powered by chips from Intel and AMD. Windows RT, a separate release with many of the same companents of Windows 8 will be powered by ARM, Nvidia, Qualcomm, and Texas Instruments. Windows 8 will run on older Windows “legacy” applications, RT will not.

Intel is currently working on a chip called “Bay Trail”, a 22-nanometer of Clover Trail, but it will not be available in the upcoming line of tablets and hybrids. The new chip will come with security features built-in and will include Infineon [3G/4G] silicon. It will use Intel’s graphic technology, not borrowing from Imagination, as other chips have done.

The November release will test the market for Windows tablets and hybrids in time for Christmas, and could point out consumer trends in the tablet vs. ultrabook vs. laptop markets. Once new high-tech chips and a new OS come into the picture to challenge Apple, we will really see the staying power of tablets and hybrids.

If Microsoft is truly capable of combining the portability and touch screen functionality of a tablet, with the ability to run desktop software, it will be a real contender in this emerging market. Right now rumors are circulating that the Windows tablets will be larger and more expensive than the iPad. If they make that trade with advanced computing power, they could still see big sales. Otherwise we will continue to see lesser tablets struggling to compete with Apple.

If you don’t own an iPad but are still intrigued by the tablet, I would wait until November to see this new line.

Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of Dell Server Solutions comments on their current enterprise server lineup:

“We’re constantly inspired by the unique ways our customers are leveraging Dell microserver platforms to drive specialized web 2.0, HPC and cloud computing applications,”

“As the microserver market and ecosystem have matured, customers like Vibrant Media have validated that microservers are a cost-effective, scalable platform in web 2.0 environments.”

Dell reports on significant accomplishments from customers who are using their PowerEdge C5220 micro servers:

* Morphlabs leverages the PowerEdge C5220 for its mCloud Rack Enterprise Edition to provide optimized levels of fault tolerance in extremely elastic configurations. This is a critical component for Morphlabs to deliver its private cloud, allowing service provider partners to offer dynamic infrastructure services characterized by atomic, highly elastic computes for predictable and fast quality of service.

* An online media group deployed PowerEdge C5220 servers to help reduce cost and drive growth. Today, each server supports up to 50 percent more users than the group’s previous servers and the company has consolidated its server footprint by a ratio of up to 4:1, while supporting a classic Web 2.0 software infrastructure consisting of Linux, Apache, MySQL™ and PHP software.

* A leading company in data processing and imaging services for the oil and gas industry uses the PowerEdge C5220 to run its software for advanced seismic data processing and imaging.

Here’s what they have for recent Updates to the PowerEdge C5220 Server line:

* New Intel Xeon processor E3-1200 v2 product family including 17 Watt and 45 Watt TDPs designed to deliver up to 1.95x more performance within the same rack, compared to the previous generation of microservers based on Intel Xeon processors.
Up to 50 percent increased density versus the previous generation of microservers.
Fast data access with DDR3-1600 memory speeds to help improve performance for data bandwidth sensitive applications.

* Key server features like ECC memory, 64-bit processing, Intel® VT-x, and full software compatibility.

* Shared power and cooling resources that can use a fraction of the energy of traditional server offerings.

Jason Waxman, General Manager of Cloud Computing at Intel comments on the addition of their processors in Dell’s enterprise server line:

“We’ve been innovating with Dell on breakthrough microserver solutions based on Intel Xeon processors since establishing the category at Intel Developer Forum in 2009. Today we are excited to see new customers using Dell systems and taking advantage of the most power efficient Xeon processors ever delivered across a broader variety of workloads,”

“The latest Dell microservers with 22nm Intel Xeon processors will enable customers to further reduce costs while processing workloads which benefit from high density configurations.”