Amy, <<<So, in the big picture of things, Barrett is an excellent CEO because he realizes that taking risk - even with a big company - is better than passivity>>>
I agree in part. Barrett is an excellent interim CEO. He is WYSIWYG. His Phd., I beleive, is in metallurgy and he was a professor at Stanford. Itanium rollout is the type of stuff he should be good at. It does not need terrific creativity or imagination. He needs to grind it out.
I disagree concerning Itanium delays. I do not believe this will hurt Intel at all. Most people (analysts) who cover Intel have no clue as to what Itanium is all about.
Do you remeber when Xeon came to market? I believe it was Drew Peck who was surprised by robustness of Intel revenues at the time, because as he admitted, he didn't understand the Xeon market.
For the most part, people who follow Intel are knowledgeable concerning PC's. Itanium, however, is not a PC. It is a whole different market - most of which is not visible to new economy observers.
This market is new for Intel, but it has been in existence for quite some time and is not about to go away - if anything it will only get much bigger.
This market is a natural for someone like Craig Barrett. It does not need anyone with charisma to sell to. It does not need a great deal of imagination and creativity. It needs some one that can grind away at it.
That is why I think Craig Barrett is a good interim CEO for Intel. He is the right person at the right time for Intel.
But, to get to the next level, to remake Intel again, that will require someone with different skill sets.
Mary |
