Intel Investors - Intel's HUGE Katmai Development program revealed.
The following article describes the huge effort Intel has put into Katmai Development , including software developers.
Note the 500 KATMAI SYSTEMS that were shipped this past summer to developers.
The Katmai Launch in early 1999 may be the shot to sink the K6-2 3DNOW - especially the pricing !
Paul
{======================================}
infoworld.com
Intel seeks Katmai support in covert campaign
By James Niccolai and Terho Uimonen
InfoWorld Electric
Posted at 10:43 AM PT, Oct 26, 1998
Intel has quietly embarked on an ambitious campaign aimed at enticing software vendors to unleash new compelling applications in tandem with the Katmai processor launch early in 1999.
For users, the campaign could help bring voice and 3-D software applications into the mainstream; take PC games to a new level of realism; and transform the Internet into a rich 3-D experience with
tantalizing commerce sites where users can interact with goods before they buy them, analysts and industry sources said.
The chip giant is keeping a tight lid on its efforts, however, and the hundreds of participating software vendors have all signed strict nondisclosure agreements about the new Katmai-optimized applications they are developing.
"We don't want to blow the cover off Katmai -- we still have Pentium IIs to sell," an Intel representative said.
No wonder: If word came out that Katmai was worth waiting for, many buyers in the market for a new PC might delay purchases, which could ruin the Christmas holiday spending spree for Intel as well as the PC vendor community at large.
Intel's Katmai campaign builds, in part, on lessons learned from the MMX launch in early 1997; however, this time around, the company has significantly expanded the scope of its efforts to include the whole spectrum of software developers, from games to business applications, on a global level.
"We are engaging with global companies; it's not a U.S.-centric effort," the Intel representative said.
The Katmai crusade started soon after the MMX launch, and Intel in the past year has been providing interested developers with compilers, debuggers, and assemblers, as well as training, to
help their Katmai efforts. Since June, Intel has shipped almost 500 Katmai systems to developers, allowing them to put the code they have already completed onto real systems, the representative said, declining to name any of the software vendors taking part in the program.
And although consumers are likely to be the early adopters, Intel certainly hopes that Katmai also will give rise to a new-generation of must-have business applications, analysts said.
In the corporate world, which still makes up the bulk of PC sales, the needs for high-performance computing today are limited to only about 10 percent of the total, said Roger Kay, an analyst at
International Data Corp., a market research company
"Intel wants to up that with more compelling business applications," Kay said.
Among the participating business software developers are marquee names such as Adobe Systems, IBM, and Microsoft, according to industry sources familiar with Intel's Katmai sales pitch. Leading speech recognition companies including Lernout & Hauspie Speech Products and Dragon Systems are also on board, sources confirmed.
Exactly what products these and other software makers are preparing for Katmai is unclear, given the strict order for silence imposed by Intel. But the chip giant has given ample indications about what types of software features will benefit from the new chip.
The first Katmai processors are due to appear in the first quarter of 1999 running at 450 MHz and 500 MHz. Central to the chip's design is the Katmai New Instructions (KNI), a set of about 70 new
processor instructions carefully architected to boost performance of multimedia-intensive software applications.
Included in KNI are so-called single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) instructions, which are designed to take advantage of the fact that many software applications repeat certain operations many times, and to process those operations in parallel. Although Intel's MMX technology includes SIMD instructions for integer data types, KNI extends those capabilities to include floating point data, which is crucial for the swift execution of multimedia code.
In particular, the Katmai architecture should allow for greater realism in 3-D software applications, where developers will be able to smooth the surfaces of objects and include more objects in a
given scene. Katmai's improved floating-point performance should also allow designers to include more complex light sources, and to render shadows and reflections that shift in real time.
The animation, or movement, of 3-D characters also should benefit from Katmai. Emerging techniques such as the use of malleable "mesh skins," which allows surfaces to appear to bend and flex, will be helped by the new processor, Intel has said.
Besides the obvious improvements Katmai could bring to computer games, Intel hopes the processor will spur development of a new class of 3-D business applications, including data-visualization tools, that will drive demand for higher-performance PC systems in the
workplace. Katmai should be better able to cope with the complex compression/decompression algorithms used in video applications, allowing for higher resolution images at faster frame rates,
which could bring applications such as videoconferencing into the mainstream.
Speech recognition is also high on Intel's list of priorities, and the company spun a separate group off from its original Katmai development team to focus on the area, sources said. Katmai is
expected to help voice software advance from the basic speech-to-text capabilities available today
to become a standard interface with which users can navigate through their desktop and perform tasks such as sending e-mail and faxes, as well as a tool to compose documents.
Lernout & Hauspie was the only software maker contacted for this story that was prepared to actually acknowledge working with Intel on the Katmai program, and would not disclose details of its efforts. The chip giant is planning to host its first "speech summit" in Singapore on Nov. 2, where speech software makers will strut their stuff, an L&H representative said.
Although Katmai and KNI hold the potential for more engaging software applications for users, for Intel, and the PC vendor community -- which has been reeling from the increasing popularity of
sub-$1,000 PCs -- the technology could provide a much-needed sales boost for their more lucrative, high-performance products.
"When 400 MHz becomes the economy processor of choice, it will become very hard to convince users to fork out the extra dollars for a higher-priced PC," said Michael Slater, founder and editorial
director of industry newsletter Microprocessor Report, in Sebastopol, Calif.
"KNI is the secret source, and if [Intel] can provide with it some really exciting applications with features that people want to use, then people will say 'That's something I have to have,' " Slater
said.
For Intel, the economic motives for driving sales of its faster processors are clear. A low-end 333-MHz Celeron processor sells for about $180, and by one analyst's estimate, costs Intel around
$50 to $75 to make. Intel's top-of-the-line 450-MHz Pentium II chip, by contrast, costs perhaps $100 to make, and sells for $400, estimated Nathan Brookwood, principal at Insight 64, a
marketing research company in Saratoga, Calif.
If the new crop of Katmai-optimized applications will be compelling enough to convince corporate users, in particular, that the time has come to upgrade their older PCs, Intel has a lot to gain, analysts said.
"Katmai will give them back $600 to $700 processors," and higher margins, said Slater of Microprocessor Report. "But now, they have the challenge of making people want to buy these things."
Indeed, the first Katmai systems are likely to sell for more than $2,000 -- twice or even three to four times as much as the ever-cheaper low-end PCs flooding the retail market, industry sources said.
Intel will also face competition from rival processor vendor Advanced Micro Devices' alternative multimedia-enhancing 3DNow instructions. By the time Katmai hits the market,AMD will already
have shipped several millions of 3DNow-enhanced K6-2 processors. To date, however, 3DNow-optimized software on the market is still mainly limited to game titles, with few business applications taking advantage of the AMD technology.
Intel Corp., in Santa Clara, Calif., can be reached at (408) 987-8080 or www.intel.com.
James Niccolai is a San Francisco correspondent and Terho Uimonen is a Taipei, Taiwan, correspondent for the IDG News Service, an InfoWorld affiliate.
Related articles:
"Intel Katmai chip will give voice to applications"
"Processor paths diverging from Intel"
Go to the Week's Top News Stories
Please direct your comments to InfoWorld Deputy News Editor, Carolyn April
Copyright © 1998 InfoWorld Media Group Inc.
InfoWorld Electric is a member of IDG.net |
