Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Scot who wrote (105440)	4/14/2000 9:54:00 AM
From: Scot	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573876

Part 2: forbes.com Intel has been practicing what it preaches. In fact, it is the largest e-commerce company in the world, selling $1 billion worth of chips each month over the Internet. And Chief Executive Craig Barrett said recently that the Web-generated business could top $30 billion annually. "The simplest catchphrase that is driving this, I think, is competition is only a mouse click away....Either you get involved in the process, or you're going to get left substantially behind," Barrett said. Meanwhile, Intel has been holding steady to its longtime strategy of developing faster and faster chips that serve as the brains for PCs. In so doing, it is genuflecting at the altar of Moore's law--Gordon Moore being the former Intel chairman who came up with the idea that processing speed doubles every 18 months. Speeds for Pentiums (as well as AMD's Athlon) have cracked the 1 gigabit barrier, and later this year Intel plans to unveil its long-awaited and long-delayed 64-bit chip, called Itanium. PC makers hope the Itanium is the key that lets them compete with Unix vendors IBM (nyse: IBM) and Sun (nasdaq: SUNW) in the highest levels of enterprise networking. Intel's most powerful weapon, however, continues to be its manufacturing prowess, which is Barrett's pride and joy. This is a company that throws up billion-dollar fabricating plants the way McDonald's opens restaurants, and it has been called the greatest manufacturing juggernaut since the U.S. military in World War II. (To give you an idea of the scope, Intel is the largest private investor in Ireland.) Its manufacturing ability, market share and technological awareness have combined to give Intel an almost overwhelming edge over any other company, and the result has been that for the most part, other companies try to stay out of Intel's way. (This week alone, two other chipmakers--National Semiconductor (nyse: NSM) and S3 (nasdaq: SIII)--shifted focus to the information appliance market in an effort to get there before Intel lays down the law.) Intel's dominance of the chip market has come under scrutiny by federal regulators on several occasions. The most recent led to a settlement last year in which the company agreed to soften some of its business practices. Yet Intel is still so strong and so rich that it can pretty much chart its own course--which has been evident from its recent acquisitions. "They are going to be able to outbid you for anything they want, and once they acquire a company they will fund it like crazy," says analyst Dan Niles of Robertson Stephens. "It's a Cisco strategy, and Cisco's been pretty darn successful." Another area in which Intel has excelled is management. From Moore to Grove to Barrett, the company has enjoyed exceptional leadership at the top. Today, Barrett oversees day-to-day operations while Grove evangelizes the company as one of the top visionaries in the industry. And the future looks bright with guys like Paul Otellini, who runs most of the chip business and may be the heir apparent to Barrett. "Leadership is one of their great strengths," says Niles. "It's unbelievably deep, something that's very rare." Still, it remains to be seen whether Intel can marshal its considerable forces in a way that lets it stay on top of an ever-shifting industry. "They're doing the right thing, but we won't know if they've done a good job for at least another year," says analyst David Wu of ABN Amro. "They're not as influential as they once were [before the Internet came along], and they don't have the same control over their own destiny that they once had." In other words, it's not yet clear if the elephant in the tutu can really dance.