Plugged In: New Pentium -- To III or not to III?
By Duncan Martell
PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - It is, of course, in Intel
Corp.'s best interest if you take the plunge and plunk down a
couple grand for a whiz-bang personal computer using its latest
flagship microprocessor, the Pentium III.
But is it in yours?
Do you really need a $2,800 PC from Dell Computer Corp.
with a 500-megahertz Pentium III (the brains of a PC) and
enough bells and whistles to allow you -- just maybe -- to
launch a Mars probe from your den?
The answer depends on whom you ask. At Intel's recent
Pentium III preview day in Silicon Valley shortly before the
chip's launch, even software developers who gathered to tout
the latest and greatest things they could do with the Pentium
III were divided.
Some said that, until enough software and super-graphical
Web sites are out there, it doesn't make a ton of fiscal sense
to lay down $1,200 or more for a Pentium III-based system.
Others said programmers are bursting at the seams with
mind-bending ideas for ever richer and complex software and are
still waiting for a microprocessor to handle it. So, they say,
power up now and wait for the software to trickle out.
"The hardware out now just can't support the software ideas
that people have," said John Rofolo, a developer at video game
powerhouse Electronic Arts. Even so, he added, "We're looking
at some big performance boosts because of the Pentium III."
Such divergent views speak to a recurring debate in the PC
industry: is the hardware leading the software or is it the
other way around? To get things more in balance, Intel learned
the last time it had a major roll-out of a new chip, the
Pentium II in 1997, that it needed talk to software folks
sooner.
Then, "We had 10 or 12 applications" to showcase, recalled
Intel President and Chief Executive Craig Barrett in an
interview at the Pentium III event. This time, Intel began
working with software developers much earlier in the process
and could boast 245 programs that were designed to run on the
speedy, ultra-multimedia-enhanced Pentium III.
"What we learned is we had to work better initially with
software developers," Sean Maloney, head of Intel's sales and
marketing group, said in an interview.
But, Intel and PC makers say getting a machine with a
Pentium III gives you more than stunningly realistic video
games. Los Angeles County, for example, is soon rolling out an
updated Web site that will use video and voice recognition that
lets you tell the site what you want to see.
"None of what we've developed really needs a Pentium III,
but it just works better with one," said Jon Fullinwider, chief
information officer for Los Angeles County, adding that it now
only takes three to five minutes to "train" voice recognition
software, compared with the 30 minutes it used to take.
"The hardware is just still way ahead of the software," he
added. "Even with the Pentium II, we weren't taking advantage
of all the features."
Still others say the performance headroom in the Pentium
III is a boon for those doing 3-D modeling and other
graphically intense tasks. "We're miles away from running out
of room on the processor," said Chris Shaw, chief executive of
start-up Haptek, which has developed a 3-D "virtual friend."
Now that consumers can snap up a new, fully functional PC
for about $300, more and more are asking themselves why they
should plunk down $1,500 or more for a faster, higher-end
system if all they want to do is surf the Internet.
Intel -- along with Microsoft Corp., PC makers and scores
of other high-tech companies -- is banking on the Internet only
getting more complex, richer and filled with stunning graphics,
video and audio which will, in turn, reignite customer appetite
for higher-end chips.
"The Internet is the application today," Barrett said.
Maybe. Yet, for consumers to get even more excited about
the Net and push the number of U.S. ho... |
