Paul et al....Intel eyes low-cost, pre-configured
Pentium PCs
By Andy Santoni and Lynda Radosevich
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 6:15 AM PT, Jun 7, 1997
Intel is looking at yet another way to reduce the cost of computing: complementing the
network computer and the NetPC with a new reference platform for low-cost,
pre-configured personal computers using Pentium CPUs -- all for about $1,000.
Unlike most inexpensive PCs today, these won't incorporate "yesterday's technology," said
Paul Otellini, Intel's executive vice president of worldwide sales and marketing. Instead,
suppliers of low-priced "Intel Inside" computers could reduce costs by cutting upgrade
options. Users of the PCs could still add components through a Universal Serial Bus
connector, he said.
Intel is "in the middle of the design process" for these low-cost PCs, Otellini said, but he
declined to provide further details.
The low-cost PC would use "some of the underlying concepts behind the NetPC," said Rob
Enderle, a senior industry analyst at Giga Information Group, in Santa Clara, Calif.
Today's PCs offer upgrade flexibility that few users need, Enderle said. They have extra
sockets, circuits, and power to allow users to change processors, interfaces, and memory,
for example. But most companies never upgrade anything but memory, and few bother to
upgrade even that, he said.
"We're designing all this cost in for something that's never done," Enderle said. Instead, as
needs change, "you buy another box."
Like VCRs, the systems would not be designed for upgradability, Enderle said. He noted
that Intel recently signed a technology-sharing agreement with Samsung, a major supplier of
consumer-electronic products.
The objective is "to explore and accelerate the development of products and technologies
that combine personal-computer technology with consumer devices," according to an Intel
statement.
Low-cost, Intel-based PCs could have dire consequences for rivals such as Cyrix and
Advanced Micro Devices, which try to stay out of Intel's line of fire by serving the middle to
low end of the market.
For example, systems that cost less than $1,000, such as the Compaq Presario 2000, use
Cyrix's MediaGX processor, which cuts costs by integrating Level 2 cache, display memory,
audio and video circuitry, and core logic.
With its integrated architecture, the MediaGX is less expensive than any Intel processor,
even if the Intel chip were free, said Steve Tobak, vice president of corporate marketing at
Cyrix. That's because the additional chips needed to perform the functions of the MediaGX
cost more than the entire MediaGX processor, he explained. |
