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

To: Barry Grossman who wrote (54104)	4/22/1998 3:55:00 AM
From: Ibexx	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 186894

Barry and thread, ____ Wednesday April 22, 1:56 am Eastern Time Intel executives upbeat as company looks past PC crisis By Richard Melville NEW YORK, April 21 (Reuters) - Casting the current tumult in the personal computer market as a temporary aberration, executives at Intel Corp. (INTC - news) offered a confident outlook on Tuesday, arguing that a new round of powerful growth is at hand for the world's largest chip maker. In a meeting with financial analysts, Intel executives pointed to a series of new products, markets and trends the company has targeted as core opportunities, even as it struggles with the PC industry through a wrenching transition. Those opportunity areas include processors aimed at higher-powered network servers than Intel has traditionally addressed, chipsets for new PCs, and, perhaps most importantly, the ongoing shift in technology to networking. ''We live in turbulent times,'' Intel Chairman and Chief Executive Andrew Grove said. ''What I want you to take away from this meeting is that our strategy of heading toward a universe of one billion connected computers remains unchanged and unwavering.'' With an eye on those markets, Intel has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in small companies it expects will help build markets for its products and launched products aimed at networking for small businesses and ultimately home computers. Intel's networking business had shown strong growth until a pause in the first quarter, President and Chief Operating Officer Craig Barrett said. But the company expects to resume growing soon at a rate faster than the overall industry. Whatever Intel's success in networking, its primary business will remain microprocessors for the foreseeable future. That business has recently stumbled due to weak demand from PC makers like Compaq Computer Corp. (CPQ - news) Compaq and others are clearing out inventory of older models as they shift production to methods more closely linked to orders. At the same time, some business customers are delaying purchases, awaiting models based on new generation chips. While painful, Intel believes the finished transition will spark new growth. There are signs the transition is progressing. Dell Computer Corp. (DELL - news), said Tuesday it had phased older Intel processors out of its business PC product line and shifted completely to Pentium II chips. Reaching for a new market segment that has thus far been the province of alternative technologies, Intel also sketched out a roadmap for chips that it hopes will capture a larger portion of the high-powered server and workstation markets. The company has formally unveiled a new processor, called Xeon, for those markets, and plans a 64-bit chip dubbed Merced, aimed at the very top of the network server market. Barrett said the company expects to deliver processors by mid-1999 with speeds of at least 500 megahertz, about 25 percent faster than the top performers in its current lineup. The company also acknowledged its late arrival to the low-cost personal computer market, an oversight another new Intel chip -- called Celeron -- is designed to address. Intel faces a stiff battle in the segment from clone chip makers Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD - news) and National Semiconductor Corp. (NSM - news) Despite the booming unit growth shown in the sub-$1,000 personal computer segment, Intel presented data showing that even in the consumer market, a slim majority of sales fall into a price range of $1,200 to $2,500, a segment Intel refers to as ''performance PC.'' Segments above and below that price range roughly split the remaining share, the company said. Intel's stock closed on Tuesday at $78.94, up $2.44 on Nasdaq. ___ Ibexx