So maybe the PC isn't dead after all?????? LOL.
Intel sees 1.5 bln PCs with fast Internet by 2010
Thursday May 15, 3:20 pm ET
NEW YORK, May 15 (Reuters) - More than 1.5 billion computers, or three-fifths of all computers sold, will have high-speed Internet connections by the end of this decade, Intel President Paul Otellini predicted on Thursday.
By 2010, handheld devices that combine computer, phone and video features will run faster than the fastest Pentium chip Intel now produces, and run some one billion transistors spinning at over four billion cycles a second.
Otellini made the boasts during an annual strategy briefing for Wall Street analysts. Officials of the world's biggest computer chip maker sought to battle back critics who say the best days of the computer industry are over, and that semiconductors such as Intel makes are becoming commoditized.
"I think there will be at least a billion and half broadband PCs," Otellini said. "That number is absolutely within our collective sights," he said, referring to the potential for the high-tech industry as a whole.
Roughly two-thirds of U.S. workplace computers have high-speed connections, but less than one-third of residential users have connections faster than basic 56,000 bit-per-second dial-up phone connections over standard phone lines, according to data from Web Site Optimization LLC in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
In 2002, the PC industry sold its billionth PC, according to market research firm Gartner Inc.
The computer industry is struggling to create demand for new types of computers that boast in-built wireless connections and massive data-processing capabilities to overcome three years of flat to negative growth. Analysts predict tepid industry growth of between 4 percent to 6 percent in 2003. |
