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

To: C_Johnson who wrote (181272)	5/20/2005 3:57:14 AM
From: Amy J	Respond to of 186894

RE: "I was just questioning the potential of WiMax given all of the disruptive possibilities taking place in the telecom/wireless arena" I don't think Intel is promoting wimax because it wants to hurt any particular flavor of a provider. In fact, if the providers did their job in the first place, Intel wouldn't be forced to do any heavy lifting here. But there still are people in rural areas that have lousy solutions - either too slow or too costly. Intel needs to maximize the number of people using high-speed Internet, because this creates more users that need more CPU demands, thus more chips. Intel needs to sell chips. I don't think Intel can wait for the providers to slowly deploy their particular flavor. I don't think Intel cares what the platform is, as long as it sells. If they see something weak that's gating their chip sales, they'll muscle in and fix it. RE: "3G, 801.whatever, WiMax, Ultrawideband, cable, DSL or any connection and plugging into a free VOIP service like Skype?" VoIP consumer market is awfully fragmented into all types of solutions. There are pre-paid card solutions, then there are the monthly service solutions, then there are the software-download solutions, then there are the hardware solutions, then there are VoIP portals, then there are the legacy solutions with analog-digital converters. What a fragmented mess VoIP truly is. Quite a confusing situation for consumers. Given Intel's success with wifi, I suspect Wimax's magic will be how it's packaged, sold and deployed. RE: "What matters is that there are forces out here influencing the financial side of the entity purchasing the chips and that is going to have an impact on the chip producers. Skype has an influence on the revenues generated " How is that dependency any different from today for Intel? Dell, HP, OEMs, etc. decide how much things will be. So I think you're making a higher level point, like, who wins in the rush to the bottom where VoIP is essentially free and the charge is determined by a provider, using your example, such as Skype? I'd say Intel's manufacturing is best suited to do high volume in the lowest cost way. RE: "We offer a variant of high speed, wireless access (WiMax) and have plans to charge for various services including VOIP and perhaps video on demand. ... Problem is, the additional charges in the business model are being challenged by those who are already providing adequate and, most importantly, free services." Why are you assuming VoIP isn't free on wimax? (I don't know anything about wimax.) RE: "Maybe it's flawed but I like to think of it in terms of how the funds (monthly fees) from an end user are allocated for the service provided. " If one can do free VoIP thru wifi, why wouldn't I be able to do free VoIP over wimax? (This is a question.) RE: " I believe the message regarding Skype and VOIP is this: "What's not clear is as the cost of calls comes down, and revenues/profits are siphoned off from the carriers, where does the money come from to fund this backbone business?" Here's my take: the cost of a call is cheap. Like you said, it's basically free. But we've got a generation of kids right behind us, willing and ready to do and pay for way more than make a simple call for free. So what if VoIP is a free add-on? RE: "Your concern about Cisco is noted though I also believe this has implications for Intel and WiMax." I don't see how Skype is a risk for Intel or WiMax, given my assumption above about VoIP. Intel is agnostic on how things get done, as long as they get done. Specifically, highspeed access. There's trouble for others only when they don't get things done. I think Cisco is at risk by Skype. On one-hand, things like Skype negatively impact Cisco's low-end consumer VoIP Linksys business, but it helps other aspects of Cisco's business as it generates more traffic. Thought Cisco was trying to get into new businesses for new growth, so what does Chambers think about Skype and what's his plan to address this? RE: "MSFT is starting their push into the VOIP business for the enterprise and carrier markets" This is great. Microsoft's marketing muscle can make a market by educating CIOs and the media. RE: "According to new research from IDC, the centerpiece of this increased activity is session initiation protocol (SIP) applications being developed for Microsoft's Office Live Communications Server 2005." Office Live is making some good buzz with the hightech companies we work with that have been using some version of it already, which is really good. It's rather exciting to see the IT geeks get excited again. SIP will help the industry. I don't think the press realizes how excited some of the geeks are over this MS offering. From the article: ""A battle for the enterprise desktop is looming between major I.T. and telecom vendors, and at the center of it are innovative types of user-defined communications and the marriage of telecom-based convergence and I.T.-based desktop collaboration," he said." Regards, Amy J