Intel is to make its processor and comms business separate units. The comms business, which Intel has spent $3 billion on in the last year, will now be run by John Miner. He will control its Internet server products, Lan and Wan lines, and the Dialogic business it acquired recently. Miner will assume control of its hubs and switching business too. Intel's CEO Craig Barrett said when he was in London last month that the company was positioning itself as a supplier of "building blocks" to the entire IT industry. The new Communications Product Group has been formed in a bid to ensure there is no conflict of interest with its microprocessor lines, and possibly also to fend off further action by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC). ® See also Intel: watch out for those network building blocks