Chipzilla does not like the idea of anyone coming up with a product it did not think of itself and so it is fairly obvious that the Raspberry Pi start up was soon going to find itself with some serious competition.

Now that the form factor from Intel, called the Next Unit of Computing (NUC) are starting to emerge it is starting to look like Intel sees the Raspberry Pi as something to be stepped on. The NUC is a complete 10x10cm Sandy Bridge Core i3/i5 computer. On the back, there are Thunderbolt, HDMI, and USB 3.0 ports. On the motherboard itself  there are two SO-DIMM memory slots and two mini PCIe headers. On the flip side of the motherboard, is a CPU socket that takes most mobile Core i3 and i5 processors, and a heatsink and fan assembly.

Intel did not say that it is being targeted at kids and the tinkerers market but it would do that really well. Its GPU is not great so the graphics are nothing to right home about but it is one of the smallest complete PCs on the market. The Raspberry Pi is smaller and thinner.  It has more inputs and outputs, too.  What it can't dod is handle the  NUC’s Core i3 and i5 processors with its 700MHz ARM SoC.  Of course the Raspberry Pi will not use as much electricity, but the NUC can use Windows.

Just Press Start, says that Intel is still looking at “different kinds of SKUs.” It almost certainly won’t be as cheap as the $25 Raspberry Pi, but a price point around $100 would be realistic.   It should be around in the second half of the year.

More here.