To: Hugh W. who wrote (35263 ) 3/23/1998 12:45:00 PM From: Mohan Marette Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 176388
From CeBIT Germany,Intel puts PC makers on notice.1 billion pcs in 5. Thursday March 19, 9:04 pm Eastern Time Intel puts PC industry on notice at CeBIT fair (Updates, wrapping telecoms and Siemens) By Neal Boudette HANOVER, Germany, March 19 (Reuters) - Intel Corp (INTC - news) on Thursday put the PC world on notice that its dizzying gains are not about to slow down anytime soon -- even for home computers priced under $1,000. At the CeBIT trade fair, Intel demonstrated a PC with a Pentium II running at 700 megahertz -- more than twice the rate of today's speed king, a 333 megahertz model. The company said such leaps in processing power would help spark a boom in the Internet and increase the global PC population to more than one billion in the next few years from 200 million today.''I can easily see it hitting one billion in five years,'' Intel senior vice president Albert Yu told Reuters. ''It is going to be a very different world.'' ............................................ But Intel was showing no signs of expecting sluggish growth. In its demonstration, the company used a PC to show an animated underwater scene that undulated with the current of the sea. As Yu moved the computer's mouse, it instantly wheeled the perspective of the animation skyward into a sun beaming into the depths and downward where submarines drifted by -- all with in a warping, watery image. ''You usually need a very powerful graphics workstation to do that,'' Yu said. After the demonstration, a second programme that measures processor speed showed the Pentium II was running at 702 megahertz.At that speed, a Pentium II PC would have the performance of what was the world's fastest supercomputer only a few years ago. Such massive processing power would enable PCs without extra equipment to talk to users and respond to spoken commands, said Gert Huegler, president of Vobis Microcomputer AG, one of Germany's top PC suppliers.''That means many more people will use PCs. The ease of use border will fall,'' he said. Hans-Juergen Mammitzsch, head of Dell Computer Corp's (DELL - news) German unit, said the coming gains in processing power would also boost Internet commerce. ''There will be huge opportunities when home PCs can run full- motion video off the Internet, and the Internet becomes truly multimedia,'' he said. Intel, the world's dominant chip maker with about 85 percent of the market, said 700 megahertz chips should hit the market in the next few years. ''This is still a technology demonstration, but that is where we are going,'' spokesman Michael Sullivan said. And it has even faster chips in the works. Yu, in a news conference, also showed a simulation of the Merced processor, which is due next year and should run at even higher speeds. Sullivan would not say how fast Merced chips would run, but he said they will be made on a more advanced process than Pentium II. ''Past history is that a new process gets you more speed,'' Sullivan said. While working on high-end chips, Intel has also developed new processors for home PCs. Next month it will launch a new Celeron brand that will hit 300 megahertz later this year and appear in PCs priced from $800 to $1,200, Yu said. ............