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

To: rkral who wrote (181295)	5/23/2005 5:36:36 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

RE: "We aren't discussing anything with respect to Intel" What we discussed is not. But if one extrapolates the concept about consumer beach head into enterprise, it is related to Intel in a somewhat concerning way, though specifically what we discussed is not. Conceptually, Wifi spread thru the road warrior - i.e. the traditional enterprise mobile worker. But wifi's proliferation was the opposite of color printers, where consumers led the deployment. (Color printers refused to take off until children got excited over them, followed by their parents. The consumer led the charge of the deployment of color printers into consumerland, which in turn created pull-thru demand for corporate America. After that, high volume deployment spread into corporate America. ) That is truly one of the rare instances where consumerland indirectly led the charge into enterprise. If we look at the example where I was a bit surprised to see CIOs bumping out Cisco's VoIP handset programming, for cellular user standards "because that's what my users know", that's another rare example of consumer familiarity influencing enterprise market, albeit a tiny example. It also suggested that if Microsoft doesn't step up its mobile cellular deployments in consumerland, it would put Microsoft at risk too, not just Intel. The Consumer represents a potential beach head into the traditional enterprise mobile worker - wifi's turf. In a nutshell, any powerful consumer adoption of a mobile device that morphs into a laptop has the potential of flipping Intel on its belly, if Intel isn't inside that mobile. Intel isn't inside Nextel, Flarion is, I believe? (I haven't been following the consumer mobile market so possibly someone else knows this better and can jump in.) Of course, only Intel has the fabs for high volume, low-cost manufacturing. Getting design wins in mobile, could plug a potential beach head that could be exploited. On a different note, I've always wondered why gaps in wifi couldn't be filled so coverage were continuous? The short distance just means more hotspots are required, right? What's stopping complete coverage while driving down 101 between cities - only a lack of hotspots? Or, is switching an issue. Regards, Amy J