Some interesting Celeron references in this article:
5/11/98
Intel's Grove, in Taiwan, courts low-end PC makers
By Sandy Chen
TAIPEI, Taiwan--Hoping to build a more solid foundation with Taiwan's PC and board makers, Intel Corp. chairman Andrew S. Grove today made a rare appearance on the island in order to drum up support for the company's current and future processor lines.
Speaking at the opening ceremonies of Intel's annual Technology Forum event in Taipei, Grove outlined Intel's future Pentium II processor roadmap, showing everything from a low-end Celeron chip running at 333 MHz to a high-end MPU called Xeon running at more 500 MHz.
There were really no surprises concerning Intel's future roadmap, but the real blockbuster was the appearance of Grove himself in Taiwan. Grove, who last week was in China, has not been to Taiwan in some 10 years despite the fact the island's PC and board makers have been Intel's best--and sometimes worst--customers.
Indeed, Intel and Taiwan have had their differences over the years. In the mid-1990s, for example, Intel began ramping up its own motherboard lines--a move that angered local board makers. Luckily for Taiwan, Intel has scaled back its motherboard efforts significantly in recent times.
Starting about a year ago, however, Intel realized the importance of Taiwan: local companies are not competitors but rather the key drivers for building low-cost PC hardware for the masses. In fact, PC OEMs don't brag about it, but many of them source their desktop and notebook PC products from Taiwan.
Today, Taiwan is the world's manufacturing center for the hottest product in the PC industry: the sub-$1,000 computer. Compaq, IBM, and other major OEMs are sourcing their sub-$1,000 Pcs in Taiwan.
The only problem for Intel is that many of the sub-$1,000 PCs in the market today are built around non-Intel MPUs. Intel struck back with its Celeron processor for low-cost systems, but the response to the chip has been lukewarm in the worldwide PC industry, including Taiwan.
Still, Grove realizes that he needs Taiwan's support in order to get Celeron into the mass markets, while also heading off competition from Advanced Micro Devices, Cyrix , and others. "[Intel and Taiwan] are really engaged in exactly the same mission in building a low-cost, modern computer world," Grove said in his speech. "We are like a big family." |
