Barry - Re: "how long ago the the Merced idea/concept became public information. "
Intel and HP made a joint announcemeent on June 9, 1994.
Here is the original article from the San Jose Mercury News:
Paul
{==============================}
6-9-94 11:08AM
Today in The Mercury News:
Intel, H-P to develop new chip
Silicon Valley's two biggest firms will target mid-sized, corporate
computer market.
BY REBECCA SMITH
Mercury News Staff Writer
The two biggest companies in Silicon Valley, Hewlett-Packard Co.
and Intel Corp., said Wednesday they jointly will develop a new type of micro-processor aimed at the market for mid-sized, corporate
computers.
The bilingual chip will run software originally written to run
exclusively on computers built around Intel's family of chips as well as H-P's' Precision Architecture workstation chip.
The arrangement will give Intel a way to expand its clout in the
workstation, server and enterprise-computing markets, which straddle
the low-end personal computer and high-end mainframe markets.
This workstation market, valued at $11 billion last year, is comprised
by largely corporate customers with high-performance computing
needs that they believe current PCs can't meet. The market is dominated by the competing chip architectures used by Sun Microsystems Inc., which has the biggest market share, by fast-closing H-P and by Digital Equipment Corp.
For H-P, the arrangement announced Wednesday
will reduce product development costs and give it
added marketing clout.
"This is a formidable alliance by two very profit-
able, visionary companies," said semiconductor analyst . Jerry Banks at Dataquest Inc., a San Jose
research firm. "I wouldn't want to have to:
compete against this combination."
Santa Clara-based lntel and Palo Alto-based H-P~
did not divulge the amount of money they will',
dedicate to the development effort, but money is no',
problem for either.
They are among the most profitable companies in:
America. They produced a collective profit of $3.4~
billion in 1993 on combined sales of $29 billion. ~
They can .easily fund a development effort that is
not expected to produce any products until 1998 or
1999.
Both to continue existing efforts
Both companies said they will continue existing! research and
development efforts. For Intel, that means forging ahead with direct
descendants of its 286, 386, 486 and Pentium chips -- code-named P6 and P7 that are expected to debut in 1995 and 1997, ~ respectively. For H-P, that means bringing out new versions of its PA-RISC chips.
The companies said they will submit their Joint-. development plan to the Federal Trade Commission for review under the antitrust provisions of the; Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Under the 1976 law, companies must notify the FTC about mergers, giving the government time to identify possible consequences |
