Is the following message the same reason they gave
when they pre-announced earmings shortfall two days ago?
Friday March 6, 4:08 pm Eastern Time
INTERVIEW - Intel seeing broad slowdown
By Martin Wolk
SEATTLE, March 6 (Reuters) - Intel Corp. President and chief operating officer Craig Barrett said Friday that Europe and
the United States have been the major areas of weakness in orders from computer manufacturers so far this year.
Barrett also said in an interview that the order slowdown announced late Wednesday has been ''more or less across the
board'' and not concentrated on any single price point.
''We're seeing a kind of general malaise in OEM orders,'' he said, referring to the original equipment manufacturers who are
Intel's primary customers.
Intel rattled the stock market Thursday with its warning the previous day that its first-quarter revenue would fall about 10
percent short of previous expectations. But after dropping more than 10 points Thursday, Intel bounced back Friday amid a
general market rebound and was up 2-5/16 at 77-7/8 in late Nasdaq trading.
Barrett said he could not explain the order slowdown, although he said the weak Asian economy was not a factor, noting
that the Japanese and Korean markets had been weak for more than a year.
"These slowdowns are not new," he said.
The hardest-hit Asian economies, such as Indonesia and Thailand, are relatively small markets for Intel.
Barrett also discounted concerns about the impact of low-priced computers on Intel sales.
''Historically Q1 has been a little bit slower,'' he said. ''The last year or two it hasn't. ... Maybe we're going back to that
seasonal slowness.''
Barrett spoke to Reuters after a presentation where he and Microsoft Corp (MSFT - news) Chairman Bill Gates promoted
the use of the Windows NT operating system on Intel-based computers for high-end engineering applications such as
product design and special effects.
Barrett said Intel itself still requires some non-Intel minicomputers to design its own computer chips, but beginning in 1999
the company will move to an architecture completely based on Windows NT systems.
But he said the transition to NT would not happen ''overnight,'' and most major customers would retain a mixed
environment for years to come with both Windows NT and variations of Unix.
Barrett said companies that wield enormous industry power like Microsoft and Intel need to behave differently than other
companies with small market share, but he said there was ''nothing illegal about a monopoly.''
''I hope in this country that we don't move toward a tendency to investigate people just because they're successful,'' he said.
''You can be successful and frustrate your competition by competing hard, competing fairly -- just by being better than the
competition.''
Like Microsoft, Intel has been the subject of a federal investigation into its business practices, and Barrett said the company
has been cooperating by supplying truckloads of documents.
He also said the company trains its workers extensively in antitrust regulations.
Barrett also said computers would not become a true mass-market appliance until the industry makes them far easier to use
and more reliable.
More Quotes
and News:
Intel Corp (Nasdaq:INTC - news)
Microsoft Corp (Nasdaq:MSFT - news)
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