Intel president sees explosive growth of Internet commerce
Mehitabel:
Nice weekend reading material here in case you missed it.
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Posted at 1:21 p.m. PDT Monday, July 19, 1999
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The chief executive of computer chip maker Intel Corp. predicted Monday that the number of Internet users will increase six-fold to 1 billion within five years, but Craig Barrett said the most important part of that growth will be business-to-business transactions.
''Business-to-consumer gets all the press because people like to read about it. Business-to-business is really the backbone of the U.S. and the world economy and that's where probably 80 percent of this business is coming from,'' Barrett said in an Associated Press interview.
Barrett, Intel's top manager, was in New Orleans to address the Computer Associates World convention, where he discussed the future of Internet commerce.
The fast-growing needs of Internet commerce will provide Intel with a number of opportunities to boost chip sales, said Barrett. One is supplying the chips for computer workstations, powerful machines with the ability to create sophisticated digital products such movie special effects. Intel also makes chips for computer servers, which are the traffic cops and information storers of the Internet.
Barrett estimated there are only about 5 percent of the servers needed to serve projected Internet needs five years from now. Intel plans to introduce its 64-bit Merced microprocessor next year for workstations and servers, which will eventually reduce the cost of both, Barrett said.
''That should go nicely with the growth of the Internet and e-commerce. There will be a demand for that to be less expensive,'' he said.
In the consumer personal computer market, Intel has faced stiff competition over the past two years from PC makers offering $1,000-and-under computers that use chips from Intel rivals.
Since then, Intel has developed three lines of microprocessors: Celeron for lower-cost machines, Pentium III for higher-grade PCs and Xeon chips for corporate servers that run networks of computers.
''That's competition, which is inherently good for us,'' Barrett said. ''The biggest impact has been advent of the low-cost or even the free computer. Today, you can sign up with an Internet provider and they'll give you a computer for free.''
Which way will the consumer go? Barrett compared future buyer choices to the automotive industry.
''People buy low-cost cars, people buy Buicks and Cadillacs, people buy BMWs. If you want to do just text messages, have access to e-mail and the Internet, a low-performance PC probably will do. If you want access to rich content and have a teen-age kid who likes to play games, there's never enough processing ability there,'' he said.
In the meantime, computers will catch up to average consumer's knowledge, Barrett predicted.
''You will see a much-more consumer-oriented design in the next five years. It will be a heck of a lot simpler. They will behave functionally as a TV set today, instant on and instant off.''
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