It seems slightly odd, that almost nine months after Intel launched their first cell phone back at CES that most Intel employees are not carrying them around at IDF.  Even at the David Perlmutter's keynote on Tuesday, it was touted that Intel had already launched phones with five partners including Gigabyte, Lenovo, and ZTE.   Intel partnered very closely with Gigabyte to design and produce the AZ210, which debuted with Android 2.3 (Gingerbread).  The phone supports most GSM based networks through WCDMA/UMTS/HSPA, HSPA+, EDGE/GPRS bands. 

It is slightly odd that so far down the line after the initial launch of the Intel powered cell phones back in January, that you still see Intel's press relations teams running around with Qualcomm powered Blackberries, ARM-powered Android devices, or even Apple's iPhone.  At this point in time, it would almost be like an Intel employees being issued AMD powered notebooks.

At the launch of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft decided that as part of its push to get the phones into as many hands as possible, that all 90,000 of their employees would be getting one device for free.  Google did the same when they launched the original Nexus phone.  Research in Motion employees all carry Blackberries as well.  I think today you would be hard pressed to find any employee on the Apple campus with a cellular device other than an iPhone.

Two scenarios are presenting themselves at this point. One is that Intel doesn't believe their partners are putting out quality devices which will suit the needs of their employees, and the other is that they aren't confident enough in the power or performance of the Medfield based parts.  We will have to wait until next week for the joint Intel / Motorla press conference in London to see if the introduction from a new partner will be enough to encourage support of their employee base.

So the question is to all Intel employees would be what cell phone is in your pocket?