In an effort to keep bottom-line growth alive, Intel is trying (again) to move into the mobile phone market. Speaking from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, the Pentium parent's CEO, Paul Otellini, told Bloomberg that Intel is focused on "where we think phones are going, not where they are today."

Last year, Otellini put to rest his predecessor's $5 billion, six-year effort to produce mobile-phone chips designed to run the communications features of cellular phones. Now, the Intel CEO is taking a different approach to the new marketplace, designing chips for phones that can surf the web and master mobile video and music. The goal for the new chip is to provide increased processing power while exerting less electricity.

In the first half of 2008, Intel will be unveiling its package of mobile chips. A successful shift toward this technology could be a boon for the company, as mobile handsets currently outsell personal computers by a 4-to-1 margin.

Is Intel hopping back to the head of the pack when it comes to retail marketshare? It has -- because in June Intel leaped ahead of AMD in the retail space with 51.2% marketshare. While this is by no means a huge lead over uber-competitor AMD, Intel's gain may give it the boost it needs to regain a long-term retail advantage over the scrappier and arguably more advanced competition from longtime nemesis AMD.

The reason for much of the retail sales gain, though, probably did not excite Intel all that much, as lower-price notebook computers with Intel's Celeron-M chip -- which retail for under $600 in many cases -- were the growth engine for Intel's lead gain. With Intel still trailing AMD in the lower-price desktop computer market, it does have a long way to go to ensure it takes marketshare from its rival where and when appropriate. I'm not sure Intel wants to take too much marketshare in lower-margin businesses, but it can afford to do that to prop its shares and prove to the investment community and the news media that it knows how to come back and win against the compeition.