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Technology Stocks : Intel Strategy for Achieving Wealth and Off Topic -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: margaret tasset who wrote (18906)	4/5/1998 7:00:00 PM
From: bundashus	Respond to of 27012

More bad news for intel? Sunday April 5, 5:10 pm Eastern Time National Semiconductor to unveil "PC on a chip" By Therese Poletti SAN FRANCISCO, April 5 (Reuters) - National Semiconductor Corp. Monday plans to announce a way to combine most of the chips used in personal computers into a single chip, which could bring PC prices under $500 and lead to a host of new computing devices. National, the country's fourth-largest chip maker, said its new chip will replace a dozen or more separate chips typically found in PCs and combine technologies that it has developed and purchased in recent years. ''Everything we have been doing is putting all the pieces together,'' National's Chief Executive Brian Halla said in an interview. National, based in Santa Clara, Calif., completed a $500 million merger with Cyrix Corp., a maker of Intel Corp. compatible clone chips, in November, giving it an arsenal of products to create a PC with one chip, excluding system memory. Other key moves included its purchase of Mediamatics in March 1997 for its graphics and television encoding technology and Pico Power in August 1996 for system logic. National said its new chip will lead to even lower cost PCs and other low-cost ''information appliances.'' Halla predicted PC prices could fall to $400 to $500 with National's new chips. ''The pricing is up to the PC suppliers, but what we are trying to do is ... put more functionality on the chip by putting more and more intelligence on the chip,'' he said. Halla will discuss plans for the new chip at a semiconductor industry conference in Phoenix, Ariz., Monday. He said National will have the first working version of its chip by year-end and it could be in volume production by June 1999. Analysts said the new chips were significant and could lead to development of other computing gadgets. ''I view it as a progress report. It's not just back of the envelope stuff anymore,'' said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at Dataquest Inc., a market research firm in San Jose, Calif. ''It requires a lot of chip work but also a lot of software work.'' ''This sub-$500 PC can take the forms of some very consumer friendly devices,'' said Richard Doherty, director of Envisioneering, a research firm in Seaford, N.Y. ''It's the whole PC, not a PC in four packages. That was a very smart decision (for National) to have made a few years ago.'' National's Cyrix already makes processors that power PCs that sell for less than $1,000. When Compaq Computer Corp. launched its first sub-$1,000 PC in February 1997, a Cyrix processor was inside. Since then, sub-$1,000 PCs have become one of the fastest growing segments of the PC market, using lower-cost Intel clone chips from its rivals National and Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Intel, under pressure because of its lack of a product for that market, is expected to introduce its entry, a family called Celeron, in the next week or so. ''I think we are about a year and a half ahead of them,'' Halla said of Intel, whose chips dominate the PC industry. ''I think we have a good plan to stay ahead of them.'' ''You will be surrounded by PCs,'' Halla said of machines that could use National's new chips. ''You will get into your car and say e-mail please, you will have a flat panel display on the wall above your bedroom. It could be impossible to predict what will happen by the year 2000.''

To: margaret tasset who wrote (18906)	4/7/1998 6:03:00 AM
From: Frank Ellis Morris	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27012

Good morning Margaret, It seems to me that as a shareholder Intel would better serve its investors by addressing the important issues like what plans does it have in the future to make computers which use its chips more advantageous over its competition. Instead Intel discusses the salary and bonus package of its chief Ceo. I thought this was a little arrogant and foolish of them yesterday. Maybe intel needs a better public relations and press coordinator Have a nice Tuesday Frank ________________________________________ * Piper Jaffray said it initiated coverage of ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES INC with a buy rating and a 12-month price target of $40. Among points in report said, "We have been able to confirm that IBM is indeed injecting capital into the company and plans to use AMD as an instrument in its last stand against INTEL CORP." (Reuters 11:00 AM ET 04/06/98) * NATIONAL SEMICONDUCTOR CORP said it will put an entire PC system on a single chip by mid-1999, a move that should dramatically lower the cost of PCs for manufacturers and consumers. The single chip would replace the 12 or more separate chips typically found in a PC today and expand the entry-level market for PCs. National said its PC on a chip is being built around microprocessor cores developed by Cyrix, the processor company it acquired in November. National plans to make the chips at its new wafer fabrication facility in Maine on 0.25-micron process technology that can be further scaled down to 0.18 micron. National said it is defining versions of the chip for major PC and information appliance makers.(Reuters 08:07 AM ET 04/06/98) * INTEL CORP gave CEO Andy Grove a compensation package worth over $3 million in 1997, a proxy statement said. Grove's base salary last year was $465,000 and his bonus was $2,790,400, both slight increases from 1996, when they were $425,000 and $2,578,300, respectively. In 1995, Grove's salary totalled $400,000 and he received a $2,356,700 bonus. The company also announced in the proxy filed with the SEC that it had granted Grove options to purchase 72,000 shares of Intel stock at an exercise price of $69.69, expiring April 22, 2007. They are first exercisable in 2002. (Reuters 10:56 AM ET 04/06/98) _________________________________________