Intel To Test The Market For PCs With Two Pentium Chips
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Intel thinks it has figured out a way to sell home computers that boast two Pentium processors instead of one. The Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor giant is teaming with software providers, electronic brokers and top PC makers to push powerful, dual-processor systems aimed at serious online traders. The idea, says Intel's (Nasdaq: INTC - news) Tom Gibbs, is to give individual investors the same powerful analytical tools enjoyed by professional brokers.
Dell Computer (Nasdaq: DELL - news) will unveil the first such dual-processor system--the Trader Station--Tuesday at an online investing show in Las Vegas. Gibbs, who is director of vertical marketing for Intel's solutions channels group in Dupont, Wash., says other big PC makers will follow in the next month or so.
``These workstations should appeal to users at home who want to have the same capability that they're competing with,'' says Gibbs, referring to the sophisticated real-time trading information that brokers use. For instance, a user could attach an additional monitor to a Trader Station and use it to conduct research on a stock while watching a video of a company's earnings announcement on the other screen.
``If you want to do the analytics to be competitive with a broker, two processors are the best experience possible,'' says Gibbs. ``They'll run applications faster, and for online investing, speed can be everything.''
For under $3,000, says Gibbs, a consumer should be able to get a two-processor workstation equipped with research and analysis software from companies like Omega Research (Nasdaq: OMGA - news) and Equis. In addition, buyers will have the opportunity to save money on new accounts with selected online brokers.
Dell declined to give details about its package, but spokesman David Graves says the company is jazzed about charting a new direction. ``The Internet is giving people a lot more direct access to the market, and serious investors out there want and demand a high-performance platform,'' he says. ``This provides us with a great opportunity.''
In February, Intel teamed with Compaq Computer (NYSE: CPQ - news) on a single-Pentium workstation bundled with a special offer from e-broker Wall Street Access. The coming of dual-processor systems coincides with the rollout of Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT - news) Windows 2000, which was designed to support two chips in the same PC.
``I think it's a brilliant plan to target individual traders with specialized equipment and tell them they can be as capable as the guys over at Charles Schwab,'' says analyst Rob Enderle of Giga Information Group. ``Daytraders are a huge market, and they'll take any type of advantage they can get.''
Huge indeed. The Securities and Exchange Commission says that assets in online brokerage accounts added up to $608 billion last year--more than the gross domestic product of Canada--and that the figure will reach $3 trillion by 2003.
For Intel, of course, the main thing is to sell more chips, and this could be just the beginning of a trend toward multiprocessor systems. As prices of fast Pentiums continue to decline, we could soon see two-processor PCs geared toward the gaming community, as well as toward high-end users who are heavily into graphics and video.
For the former to happen, Microsoft will have to add broader gaming capabilities to Windows 2000--the successor to Windows NT, the company's corporate operating system. But, as Enderle points out, Microsoft has already added a gaming ``patch'' for Windows 2000, suggesting that it knows where the future lies.
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