Ten, an interview with the boss in Taiwan. Says "We think the
second quarter will be flat over the first quarter."
That's better than flat to down as per the earnings statement on April 13th.
Also, "Typically, the industry is much stronger in the
second half compared to the first half. But this
year, it is quite a bit more complicated [due to]
the year 2000 problem. Will that accelerate or
increase buying patterns? We still expect the
second half to be seasonally up from the first half.
But I don't see a clear indication yet how strong
the second half will be."
I wonder if the 'accelerate or increase buying patterns' was a misunderstanding or a typo. They both say about the same thing.
ebnews.com
======================================================================
Q&A: Intel's Barrett on
Asian marketplace
By Sandy Chen
Electronic Buyers' News
(04/26/99, 08:39:26 PM EDT)
This week, Intel Corp. president and chief
executive Craig Barrett made his annual visit to
Taiwan to kick off the Asia-Pacific Intel
Developers Forum in Taipei. At the event, EBN
conducted a one-on-one interview with Barrett in
order to find out more details about the
company's strategy with Rambus Inc., business
dealings in China and Taiwan, as well as the
general health of the PC industry.
EBN: It's been well documented that Rambus'
licensees are having some problems making the
new Direct Rambus DRAM (RDRAM) parts. Can
you shed some light on that as well as the "Direct
Rambus DRAM versus PC133 DRAM" debate?
Barrett: We are still very excited about the
prospects of RDRAMs. But it will basically be an
issue of availability, cost and performance. We
had hoped that [the RDRAMs] would be available
about mid-year. That looks like it will slip to the
third quarter. [But this] really depends on whether
the DRAM suppliers who are supplying RDRAM
can produce the product at the right speed at the
right cost. If they are not able to compete with the
133-MHz SDRAM or whatever the alternatives
are, then it could be a real challenge. But we still
think that RDRAM has a strong technical
capability.
EBN: What is the outlook for Intel in 1999? What
about the entire PC industry?
Barrett: Our first quarter was up some 18%
[from the like period a year ago]. We think the
second quarter will be flat over the first quarter.
Typically, the industry is much stronger in the
second half compared to the first half. But this
year, it is quite a bit more complicated [due to]
the year 2000 problem. Will that accelerate or
increase buying patterns? We still expect the
second half to be seasonally up from the first half.
But I don't see a clear indication yet how strong
the second half will be.
EBN: What's your impression of Taiwan
semiconductor industry and could you please
comment on Intel's relationship with it?
Barrett: [Taiwan's semiconductor industry] has
been one of the most aggressive in the last few
years. Many of the investments here are really
foundry sources or sub-contract manufacturing
sources, which we use from time to time.
EBN: Intel has made investments in Micron,
Samsung, and a slew of other companies. Will
Intel make any investments in Taiwan?
Barrett: Nothing to announce.
EBN: China's IT industry is growing very fast.
Will China be a very strong competitor to Taiwan
in the IT industry?
Barrett: The consumption of IT equipment and
computers in China is obviously much larger than
Taiwan. I think perhaps by the end of this year,
China will be the second largest market for
computers in the world, behind only the United
States. They have surpassed Japan and become
the second largest market for computers. The
PC industry in mainland China is relatively alive
and healthy and very competitive with the
multinational [OEMs]. Companies like Legend
and Great Wall did very well in competing
against IBM, Compaq, Dell, and
Hewlett-Packard. As far as competing with
Taiwan, I think there is already a degree of
competition from a manufacturing standpoint, just
because of the cost of manufacturing.
Manufacturing has moved from Taiwan to China.
The real issue is where is the engineering is
done. That's still done in Taiwan. |
