Intel rejects investor call to give up its hopes and dreams

'We don't plan for failure'

By Ashlee Vance in Mountain View • Get more from this author

Posted in PCs & Chips, 6th March 2008 19:09 GMT

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Intel's growth strategy revolves around a familiar refrain - the x86 architecture makes life better on everyone.

Looking at the Atom products, for example, Intel claims a software edge over ARM.

Companies such as Adobe and mobile game maker Glu relish the idea of crafting software for just one instruction set rather than writing versions of their code for a wide range of ARM variants, according to Otellini. Apparently, Adobe has 150 versions of Flash for ARM chips and just one for Intel products, while Glu makes 25,000 versions of its Transformers game for various mobile devices. That sounds like an awful lot of versions to us, but we'll trust the Little Otter.

Intel will throw a chip called Diamondville (Q2) at the "net top" internet access devices, Menlow (Q2) at mobile internet devices, Sodaville (2009) at consumer electronics and an embedded version of Menlow (Q3) at embedded devices.

The chip maker also expects to serve PC customers with chips that combine standard processors with graphics processors. By 2010, Intel hopes to throw the full weight of its manufacturing expertise at both CPUs and graphics products, meaning that the graphics parts will be built with the latest and greatest technology.

Turning away from chips for a moment, Intel EVP Sean Maloney discussed another nice add-on for PC buyers. The company plans to release a remote wake-up and shutdown tool for computers that will let customers access their machines remotely and then power down the systems when they're done pulling files.

Little Otter - Big Show

We thought Intel's brass boys put on a rather solid show for their precious investors. Otellini and friends demonstrated that Intel's 45nm manufacturing prowess stands as a big edge for the company and predicted that 32nm should proceed just as well.

In addition, Intel continues to try and cut as many costs as possible, including the disposal of more than 20,000 workers from a high of just more than 100,000.

Investors love that kind of talk, even when they're hung up on issues such as slumping gross margins.

Otellini, in particular, seemed in his element during the event, using more force than usual to counter notions such as Intel turning into a boring Philip Morris replica.

Now all Intel has to do is live up to its promises, which has proved tough in the past. ®