INTC?? Forbes.....
Why would Intel, a company that makes processors for computers, even care about such things, let alone pay several hundred thousand dollars to put on a conference about them? (The Santa Clara, Calif. company didn't charge a fee to attend the event, held at the Hyatt Regency hotel.)
Here's why: The computer industry is moving away from the PC and toward smaller devices like smart phones and PDAs, which people will increasingly use to access the Internet. Already, some 90% of all computer chips are embedded in devices such as phones and toasters. And ultimately, many of these chips--in cars, home appliances and even people themselves (using network-connected eyeglasses or other wearable or implantable devices)--will be connected to the Net.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Intel already knows the general shape of its future: It's been positioning itself as the company that will provide the building blocks for future computing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
That means companies like Intel must evolve or risk being left in the dust of the twentieth century, when the PC ruled and all the company had to do was crank out faster and faster chips. And what better way to set a new direction than to ask the people who are paving the road--researchers from places like Columbia, MIT, Xerox PARC and SRI International, as well as the top minds from industry leaders such as International Business Machines (nyse: IBM) and Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT).
To help harvest ideas at the conference, Intel set a networked notebook computer in front of every attendee to offer comments and suggestions in real-time as speakers gave presentations.
Intel already knows the general shape of its future: It's been positioning itself as the company that will provide the building blocks for future computing, and that translates into networking and communications. In recent months, the company has acquired a boatload of smaller companies, all of whom are involved in some form of networking, either in software or chips.
It's likely in the future that Intel will no longer be a straightforward chipmaker, but rather a hybrid company making software as well as hardware. A hint of that came at this week's event, where Intel demonstrated speech-recognition software being developed at its research center in Beijing. "We're working on a software engine that eventually might go into hardware," said Robert Yung, the 36-year-old director of the Chinese center. |
