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

To: Chi-X who wrote (39828)	11/10/1997 3:33:00 PM
From: Maverick	Respond to of 186894

ntel plans low-end machines BY TOM QUINLAN Mercury News Staff Writer Intel Corp. -- whose fortunes have paralleled the growth of the PC market -- is now preparing for the fragmentation of that market, with plans for Intel-based computers that range from a stripped-down, $500 model to a $500,000 multiprocessor server. Under increasing criticism from Wall Street for ignoring the fast-growing sub-$1,000 sector, the Santa Clara computer maker on Friday announced a series of low-cost systems for consumers and business users that would use variants of the Pentium and Pentium II chips. Those systems, which should start appearing within months, are intended to compete with the network computers being touted by Oracle Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM and the system-on-a-chip designs being promoted heavily by National Semiconductor Corp. and LSI Logic Corp. Although Intel continued to insist that the impact of low-cost systems has been greatly exaggerated, Chairman Andy Grove took advantage of an annual analysts' meeting in Santa Clara Friday to sound the death knell of the monolithic PC marketplace. The PC market of the future, Grove said, will feature a series of related but distinct segments, based on processors and system designs with wildly different capabilities. However, Grove also promised analysts that ''we're confident that we can address all of these marketplaces with the systems and designs we have in place right now. We think the market will reward us in line with the value that we will continue to bring to the market.'' Intel's low-end plans for the corporate market now call for numerous ''lean client'' designs that will come with a variety of processors and operating systems, with prices ranging from $500 to $1,200, said Paul Otellini, the company's executive vice president of sales and marketing. Like traditional PCs, the lean client would have a processor, screen, keyboard and memory. But it would not include such standard PC components as a hard drive or slots that enable users to add features to the system. For the home, Intel is taking a different tack with the Basic PC, a Pentium- or Pentium II-based system that also lacks some features of a standard desktop system but is expandable. The Basic PC is priced at less than $1,000, even though it boasts a powerful processor and communications capabilities. Most of the cost savings would come via Intel's plan to use software to duplicate functions that once required separate hardware devices, such as a modem or sound card, said Mike Aymar, vice president and general manager of Intel's Desktop Products Group.