American chipmaker Marvell is hinting that it may be producing chipsets for the Chinese Windows Phone market. In an interview with Daily Tech, the director of Marvell's applications processor business unit, Jack Kang, predicted that, "If there's Windows Phones in China, there will probably be Windows Phones with Marvell in China." Currently, only Qualcomm is producing chips for Windows Phone devices, although competitor ST-Ericsson recently announced its own plans to get in on the action. Marvell's strength in producing "quality low-cost devices," is a good fit for Windows Phone Tango’s expected focus on reduced spec requirements (e.g., only 256MB of RAM). Nokia’s already strong position in China could help Microsoft's mobile platform gain some needed traction in that country, where developers are currently preparing for a Windows Phone Marketplace launch.

In the interview, Kang also hints that Marvell may even release ARM-powered Windows 8 tablets and laptops when the software is released in Q4 2012, stating, "Microsoft already said Windows 8 will run on ARM. And we build ARM devices, so…." It goes without saying, but a low-cost ARM tablet with MS Office done right could really make some waves in the enterprise tablet market.