John, et. al.
Here's some more ammunition for Intel investors (And I'll bet Rod Macpherson is already re-loading his rifle).
Monica
sumnet.com
Copyright Electronic News
Intel Forms Workstation Unit
By Jim DeTar
Santa Clara, Calif.--Intel will today announce the formation of a workstation division dedicated to removing the
barriers to entry for workstation OEMs wanting to use the Intel architecture platform. Industry observers said the
move will likely not surprise Intel's current workstation customers who have seen the company push to remove
barriers to entry for a large number of OEMs in the PC market.
The workstation division will be based at Intel's new Dupont, Wash., site, south of Seattle, and will be headed by
Anand Chandrasekher, who has been named GM of the division. Mr. Chandrasekher is drawing on various
elements in the company to create the new division which is chartered to develop "building blocks" for the
workstation marketplace.
In an interview with Electronic News, Mr. Chandrasekher spelled out details of the division's charter. "For the last
couple of years, we've been focusing on the vertical market segments: servers, portables, etc. We haven't really
had a workstation component," he said.
"We've sold chipsets to workstations and, with Pentium Pro processor performance being excellent, Intel's
architecture has been penetrating the workstation market as companies like Siemens, Hewlett-Packard and
Compaq all entered the workstation marketplace with Intel architecture," he added.
Logical Move For Intel
Mark Kirstein, senior analyst at market research firm In-Stat, said the move is a logical one for Intel.
"It makes sense. Intel always wants to enable the market they are going into. The question I would ask is whether
they're still committed to not putting their nameplate on the front of any of these boxes. They've been producing
motherboards, chipsets and even systems, but never put their name on any of these."
Intel's Mr. Chandrasekher responded that Intel intends to continue its policy of not competing with its systems
customers. "We will build boards, but whether we build systems--we traditionally haven't done that. Clearly what we
do is build building blocks. There is no intention for Intel to build systems."
When asked whether Intel's move to take down barriers to entry to the Intel-platform workstation market might
aggravate the company's current workstation OEM partners, like recent entrant Compaq, Mr. Chandrasekher
replied, "No, It will expand the market for them to participate in, like on the server side."
In terms of the organizational structure of the newly-created division, "I report to Pat Gelsinger, VP and GM of the
Desktop Product group," Mr. Chandrasekher said. "The workstation division is a mini-vertical under Pat." Mr.
Gelsinger replaced Carl Everett as head of that group last year.
Mr. Chandrasekher has been with Intel nine years in a variety of marketing and product planning positions. His
assignment before this was as technical assistant to Intel president-elect Craig Barrett, who is currently executive
VP and COO, and will become president in May. Mr. Chandrasekher said he was also previously in charge of
shutting down Intel's 486 desktop operations and, before that, marketing desktop 486 products.
In addition to Mr. Gelsinger as GM, other officers for the new group will include Andre Wolper, who will work with
the software ISV side of the house; and Raghu Murthi, who will work with the product side on sale of boards and
processors--he will meet directly with OEMs. Both are director-level positions.
An Intel spokeswoman said that there were originally, in the Pentium Pro introduction time frame, one or two
people in the workstation marketing group working with ISVs. That has grown to five people, but they were still in
the Desktop Products group, but a few layers down from the level of the new workstation division, the
spokeswoman noted.
Jobs To be Filled
Mr. Chandrasekher said the new unit "absolutely" will be hiring people, but he declined to name a target figure for
employment within the unit.
The announcement of the formation of the workstation division is also tied into the Intel Technology Series,
one-day industry forums on various topics. The next forum will be held March 24; titled "Intel Platforms for Visual
Computing," it will feature Mr. Barrett as a key speaker and will showcase some of the new visual technologies
that the company is developing. In addition, it is anticipated there will be technology demonstrations on Pentium
Pro systems, as well as systems with the forthcoming Pentium II microprocessors.
"Visual computing in our mind is a lot of things. Imagine video and 3-D on PCs. The real beauty we see here is
visual computing coming down from the workstation to the volume PC. On March 24, you will see how the
technology flows down to the PCs. Both segments of the platform will benefit from each other. That's one of the
things this division will do is accelerate the flow of information from the high end to the low end," Mr.
Chandrasekher said.
Speculation
In-Stat's Mr. Kirstein speculated that Intel's creation of a workstation division might concern established
workstation OEMs using Intel architecture, such as Compaq Computer and Hewlett-Packard, but he said it would
likely not surprise them and would not slow them down.
"That's why it's so hard to make money on the desktop. It makes the world more challenging for OEMs that have
their own investment. How do you think Compaq felt about Dell and Gateway (entering the PC market)? It should
be nothing new to the established OEMs that Intel is going to keep barriers to entry low," Mr. Kirstein said.
Just as in the PC market, Intel's moves to establish a quasi-open standard for workstations do not leave
established OEMs without means of growing market share. "Compaq will continue to try to add value in other
ways. They can offer support of an entire system: software set-up, the whole support organization that an
enterprise computing company brings. That is a direction that Compaq is headed anyway." |
