To reiterate, given that I apparently failed to communicate this well- -The mobile space was essentially locked down by ARM. All of the OS', tools, and apps ta

To reiterate, given that I apparently failed to communicate this well- -The mobile space was essentially locked down by ARM. All of the OS', tools, and apps targeted ARM. -Intel was on the outside looking in, so they starting giving away chips, offering their own engineering to bring Android (and other OS') to x86, and making it a compelling target for the makers. -Intel x86 OS images for Android became available and production quality (originally only deployed in developing markets as essentially a beta). Intel x86 toolsets were available. Still, though, it didn't matter much because there was no market. -So Intel gave away their chips. By the tens of millions. These chips are actually quite excellent (great performance, 64-bit, great graphics, low power consumption), but knowing that they were on the outside looking in, they gave them away. The Android ecosystem now is one where x86 (and soon x86-64) is as supported as ARM is. There are tens of millions of x86 devices, and it's only accelerating. No one can ignore it. Intel gave away chips because they were at a disadvantage, but they're quickly getting to a position where if they make a very compelling chip they no longer are sabotaged by being an outsider.