Elmer and thread:
An update from Palm Springs.....btw Elmer, M. Burstiner thinks that it was Intel that drove Cyrix/NSM out of the low end cpu business. You need to set her straight.
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New Management Model Speeds Intel's Chip Development
By Marcy Burstiner
Senior Writer
2/16/00 9:14 PM ET
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. -- Intel (INTC:Nasdaq - news) will be producing its new networking processor, called the Internet Exchange Architecture, in full volume next month, just seven months after it first unveiled the chip. Thirty companies, including Nokia (NOK:NYSE ADR - news), Ericsson (ERICY:Nasdaq ADR - news) and Lucent (LU:NYSE - news), are already designing their systems with it.
This is record time for Intel, where chip development typically takes years. But the networking division at Intel is a new animal representing a new model of management. Homegrown Intel personnel make up only half of the staff, while the rest come from assorted companies Intel has recently acquired, including chipmaker Level One Communications, software-makers NetBoost and Softcom, and equipment-maker Dialogic.
Integrating these companies required changing Intel's historically centralized approach toward development, says Mark Christensen, general manager of Intel's Network Communications Group, speaking at the Intel Developer's Forum. "We are definitely loosely connected," he says. "We are a bunch of focused teams trying to beat the competition in every sector. My job is to not let any of the bureaucracy filter in."
This structure is the future of Intel, he says, as the company moves into new markets like wireless communications, networking and services, which need a measure of automony. "[CEO] Craig [Barrett] is very committed to growing the company, but he realizes it has to be managed in a much different model," he says.
Intel's Internet Push
Don't even think of suggesting to Paul Otellini that Intel was late to the Internet party. As general manager of architecture for the world's biggest chipmaker, he's the guy that plots out global domination of Intel chips over every computing and networking device. He's also regularly named in the industry as a possible successor down the road to CEO Barrett.
When Chairman and then CEO Andy Grove in 1996 first talked about a day when there would be 1 billion connected computers, Otellini tells TSC in a poolside interview at the Wyndham Hotel, "nobody had clear Web initiatives," he says.
Turns out we have Intel, and not Vice President Al Gore, to thank for our ability today to bid for an X-Files wall clock.
Intel has spent extraordinary amounts of time and cash (equity investments in some 350 start-ups now worth about $8 billion) prodding the software and hardware industry to develop nifty Web applications, he says. And don't forget that the Internet is built on PCs, most of which have Intel inside. "The Web wouldn't have happened without 400 million computers out there," Otellini says.
At a recent financial conference the executive of one semiconductor company suggested that Intel seemed to be investing in hundreds of emerging technologies, in hopes that one will become as successful as the microprocessor, the product that made Intel one of the most profitable companies of all time.
"I don't think anything can be further from the truth," Otellini says. "The wrong thinking is to presume that Intel is out to create another microprocessor franchise. No company can do that [kind of success] twice. We look at the Internet as the demand driver. We understand and know how to evolve the silicon, and around this area we know that there are a couple of business opportunities that will be tremendous."
Take networking and technology services, such as the operation of server farms, sectors that Otellini thinks have tremendous growth. These are areas just now developing, with plenty of room for a resourceful company like Intel to build market share fast. "We think we have as good a chance as anyone. The question is how well we can do."
New Product Line
Beginning next week, Intel will begin worldwide shipments of a new series of products, named NetStructure, that will connect routers to servers and increase the ability of servers to handle traffic and transactions, while elevating the speed, bandwidth and security of the network. John Miner, general manager of Intel's communications products, says the new product represents a "new category creation" of appliances. To promote the new line, Miner says, Intel will spend "tens of millions of dollars" for advertisements in technology and business publications.
The Hinterlands
Camped out at the Palm Springs Hilton down the road from the Intel forum, two representatives from Intel's scrappy rival, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD:NYSE - news), tried to upstage Intel's party with a small bash for the company's high-speed Athlon processor.
"We have to do everything we can to make sure we keep up with Intel on performance," says Mark Bode, division marketing manager for AMD's Athlon, the chip that outpaced Intel's Pentium chip in speed earlier this year.
Bode joined AMD just several months ago. His previous stint had been at National Semiconductor (NSM:NYSE - news), which Intel drove out of the microprocessor business, forcing National to sell its Cyrix PC chip division to Taiwan-based Via Technologies. Bode isn't worried that AMD could meet the same fate. The Athlon outperforms Intel chips and will continue to do so, he says. "We will be the performance leader."
Give points to AMD for chutzpah, since the Hilton was fully booked with Intel fanatics.
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