Sonki, et. al. - Re: Intel Shareholders Meeting
I went but I will not have time to post a detailed description until later this evening. I have to return to the woodshop for some evening work!
A few impressions - the attitude of Drs. G. Moore, A. Grove, & C. Barrett was a bit upbeat, confident, but still a little reserved.
It was well attended - overflow capacity (I guess the meeting tripped the Flag Errata problem!).
Andy looked good - well rested, good color, good sense of humor.
Barrett decribed Intel's stock performance - up 11X since 1991, and 35X since 1986 - his observation was that Intel's stock has not only been a good investment - IT CONTINUES TO BE A GOOD INVESTMENT.
I had the pleasure of meeeting Carl Mehr (The humble one) who is quite a Gentleman and investor.
Andy's new theme - ALL COMPUTING WILL BE NETWORKED COMPUTING. This summarizes Intel's recent actions in networking - purchase of CASE, investments in MRVC, NIC price reductions, 100 MHz Hub price reductions, etc.
(Expect a lawsuit from SUN - who has "patented" the expression - The Network IS THE COMPUTER).
Intel will both compete and cooperate with the networking CZARS - Cisco, 3COM, Bay, etc.
Tom Dunlap (VP/Secretary/Legal) addressed the DEC Lawsuit - he mumbled that Intel doesn't believe it has infringed any patents of DEC. He was less descriptive (if that is possible) about the Cyrix lawsuit.
Grove described the process technology development from the 286/386 days, and presented two slides depicting die size reductions from these developments. There was one interesting but conflicting "picture" which I will elaborate on later.
The road map depicted process geometries out to 0.1 micron in about 5 or 6 years.
Barrett said Intel will add capacity to match the growth rate in the PC indistry. Presumably, if the UNIT PC growth rate is 15 - 20%/year, Intel will build fabs/assembly plants to match production requirements for 2 years into the future.
Intel will spend 4.5 Billion dollars in Capital Equipment and Plant Capacity in 1997 - 2 to 2.5X the amount of Intel's nearest competitor.
Fort Worth Fab 16 will have a groundbreaking next month - June.
Some BOZO asked why the Directors were getting such good deals as salaries, expenses, stock options, etc. He was shot after the meeting.
(LAWDOG - THAT'S A JOKE - NOT A CALL TO ARMS!)
Andy gave a tribute to Gordon Moore - I guess Gordon has been Andy's boss for 34 years - and Gordon is now handing over the reigns to Grove.
Grove & Barrett, in response to a question about recent competition in CPUs (Cyrix and AMD) - Intel has always had competition for x86 and other CPU manufacturers (MIPS, SUN, PowerPC, Dec, AMD, Cyrix) - Intel plans on maintaing its lead through process development and architectural/design improvements.
Competition is nothing new and Intel knows how to compete (I didn't know that!)
More later.
Paul |
