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Technology Stocks : Intel Corporation (INTC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Engel who wrote (136163)	5/27/2001 5:56:37 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Five Questions for Gordon E. Moore: Technology Intensifies the Law of Change By MATT RICHTEL The New York Times Gordon E. Moore, a co-founder of Intel, announced he would retire from Intel by the end of this month. In a telephone interview he spoke about the implications of high-speed technology. Gordon E. Moore and Robert N. Noyce co-founded Fairchild Semiconductor in 1957 and, a decade later, they co-founded the Intel Corporation (NasdaqNM:INTC - news). In a paper Mr. Moore published in Electronics Magazine in 1965, he articulated the concept that underpins what has become known as Moore's Law: the power of a silicon chip will double every 18 to 24 months, accelerating the pace of technological change. Mr. Moore, 72, an "accidental entrepreneur," as he calls himself, is one of the pioneers of Silicon Valley. Since 1997 he has been chairman emeritus at Intel which, under his management, grew into the global leader in computer chip design and manufacturing, with nearly $34 billion in annual revenue. On April 11, Mr. Moore announced he would retire from Intel by the end of this month. In a telephone interview last Wednesday, excerpted below, he spoke about the implications of high-speed technology. Q. One consequence of the pace of technological change, and perhaps a byproduct of Moore's Law, is that consumers sometimes feel that the moment they buy a computer it becomes obsolete or, at least, no longer a cutting edge product. How do we resolve that frustration? A. That's a real problem. The industry has established the fact that if you wait a year you can get something that delivers higher performance and lower cost. But by doing that you never take advantage of what's here. I think it's a byproduct that is built into a technology that's changing this fast. The solution is not to make progress and I don't think that's a good answer. Q. Has the increased pace of technological change driven change in other parts of our lives? Is life moving more quickly, and is that a good thing? A. Certainly, the exponential nature of change is what Moore's Law is all about. I don't know how to define if it's good or not. It certainly puts a strain on people. The only thing that's constant is change these days. For people who find change something that they're not content with, I could imagine it being a real problem. It probably affects those of us in the tech industry more than anyone else. We've learned to live with it. The collective effect is large and generally positive. If you look at the way a lot of things are influenced by the rapid flow of technology learning things faster, our medical systems are greatly improved, automobiles are more reliable all of these things are a result of technology's rapid change and positive contributions. Q. What in your view is the future of Intel, and of your legacy? A. They're not quite the same. Intel is a major company in a very rapidly moving industry. As long as we can anticipate and make the right moves, we have the opportunity to grow but in an industry that does change this fast, you have a lot of opportunity to make mistakes. That's what we have to do: avoid making major mistakes. As to my legacy, as ridiculous as it seems to me now, it's probably going to be Moore's Law. Q. Do you see troubling side effects from the widespread use of personal computers? For instance, the effect they have at work of physically isolating people? What, if anything, keeps you up at night worrying? A. What keeps me up at night is doing my own e-mail. I wouldn't say anything keeps me up at night worrying. Anything that changes in a dramatic way the way we do things, requires us to give up doing things that may have been attractive before. I'm amazed to see how many people working at Intel are sitting at terminals pushing buttons where previously they may have been working together. I guess that does introduce a kind of an isolation but it sure is an effective way to do things, essentially 24 hours a day. It gives a lot of capability for which there is a sacrifice. I'm not sure it sacrifices much more than did the introduction of the automobile assembly line, where employees could see each other but not hear each other. I'm not sure it's a qualitative difference. Q. What do you see as the most prominent threats to United States economic dominance in the future? A. I have a concern that we're not training enough of the U.S. population to maintain our technical lead. Our outstanding universities, which are the envy of the world, are training half foreign-born students who are going back to where they came from. I see our tech companies taking advantage of well-trained people in other countries. But we're in danger of exporting a lot of technological advantage because we're not training enough people here. Education, that's our Achilles' heel.

To: Paul Engel who wrote (136163)	5/28/2001 12:05:38 AM
From: dale_laroy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 186894

>Realtiy check - SUN has already LOST the uniprocessor to 8-way server - Intel-based machines have dominated this for the past several years.< But, assuming Sledgehammer is technically as great as AMD claims it will be (or at least as close as Athlon was to its prelaunch hype), Intel could quickly lose this lead. This would be especially true if IBM were to replace all their Xeon based servers with Sledgehammer based servers, which could very well be the case if IBM is a major foundry for AMD processors. IBM claims that in the server market it is all about moving data, not internal performance. With an integrated memory controller and HTT communications between processors (sort of reminicent of Transputer), Sledgehammer based servers could possibly achieve phenomenal TPS.