| May 14, 1998 |
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By Robert Lemos
May 13, 1998
ZD Net News
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Intel's next-generation chip, code-named
"Merced," has whipped up an amazing show of
support among PC workstation and server makers. Not bad
for a chip still 1 1/2 years away from production. But
now those same vendors have to face customers worried
about buying a high-end computer today that will become
obsolete tomorrow.
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By Michael Kanellos
May 13, 1998
C/Net
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The expensive price tag on Intel's
upcoming Xeon processors should boost the chip giant's
bottom line as it faces sagging margins due to the
growing use of cheap chips in popular sub-$1,200 PCs. The
top-of-the-line 400-MHz Xeon Pentium II processor will
cost computer vendors an unprecedented $4,489 in volume
when it is released toward the middle of the year, more
than five times the most expensive Intel chip currently
on the market, according to industry sources familiar
with the pricing. The chip includes a
performance-boosting two megabytes (MB) of extra
"cache" memory.
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By Anthony Cataldo
May 13, 1998
EE Times
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Tapping its latest 0.25-micron process
technology, Intel Corp. is rolling out two boot-block
flash memory families that will serve the fledgling
market for handheld systems and set-top boxes, as well as
the more traditional cell phone market. Intel's products
are meant to address two areas that the company considers
to be flash memory's weakest — speed and security. To
address performance, Intel has turned to some new and old
tricks. For more speed, it has resurrected a previously
unsuccessful effort to provide synchronous burst
interface for flash devices, saying it has now garnered
widespread industry support for the interface standard.
What's different is how the company is attempting to
provide better protection against cellular phone fraud
and data corruption with a separate set of devices that
includes hard-wired serial numbers as well as more
advanced block-locking features.
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By Jim Davis
May 13, 1998
C/Net
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The market for sub-$1,000 personal
computers will continue to grow rapidly through the year
2001, which could have severe ramifications for PC
vendors without strong server and workstation product
lineups, International Data Corporation said in a report
released today. Three years from now, inexpensive PCs
will account for 25 percent of all worldwide PC
shipments, up from 12 percent in 1997. The report says
that domestic sales of sub-$1,000 PCs to both the
corporate and retail markets will grow to over 33 percent
of the total market in 2001.
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By Staff Writer
May 14, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
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The increasingly popular sub-$1,000 PC
will account for 25% of global desktop PC unit shipments
by 2001, more than doubling the 12% it represented in
1997, according to the International Data Corporation
(IDC). Falling component prices, aggressive vendor
pricing, and stepped up Internet usage will fuel the
growth, the Framingham, Mass. research firm said
Wednesday.
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By Linley Gwennap
May 12, 1998
Microprocessor Report
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Intel has been relentless in arranging
its products to leave no openings in its lineup that
competitors might exploit. Despite its best efforts,
however, the gap between Intel's notebook and desktop
processors, which started as a crack a few years ago, has
now expanded to a sizable fissure. This gap has
frustrated notebook PC buyers and could provide an
opening for a wily competitor. As the chart below
shows, the performance difference between Intel's fastest
desktop processor and its fastest notebook processor has
been growing by roughly one speed grade per year. The
486DX2 dissipated so little power that it fit into
notebooks without any modification, so there was no gap.
Once Intel moved to Pentium (P54C and P54CS), however,
the standard parts were too hot for notebooks. Intel
compensated by cutting the supply voltage to reduce
power, but this change also slows the clock speed.
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How
Much Power Is Too Much?
Intel, Microsoft Must Limit Control
Over Periphery to Protect Their Cores
By Michael Slater
May 12, 1998
Microprocessor Report
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Microsoft and Intel have each found
themselves at the center of a lot of unwelcome attention
recently. As the two companies at the heart of the PC
industry, they have accumulated awesome power. But both
companies are now under government scrutiny, and these
investigations could have far-reaching implications. Under
U.S. antitrust law, being a monopoly supplier is not
illegal. Using this monopoly to restrict competition in
other lines of business, however, is illegal. Ultimately,
however, the law doesn't provide clear answers; in each
case, a judgment call must be made, with serving the
public interest being the litmus test. So I will give my
thoughts on Intel and Microsoft not from the perspective
of what is legal, but based on what I believe would serve
the industry and consumers best.
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| May 13, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
May 12, 1998
C/Net
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Hewlett-Packard will give customers up
to $20,000 in rebates on select server computers based on
Intel's upcoming Xeon and Merced chips, as HP moves
aggressively to establish itself as the leading vendor
for 64-bit servers. Under a new rebate program,
customers that purchase HP NetServers containing either
four or eight of Intel's older Pentium Pro processors
over the next two years will qualify for an upgrade
program that will allow them to buy server hardware based
around the future Xeon "Slot 2" and Merced
chips at a substantial discount. The rebates start at
$1,000 and range incrementally up to $20,000, depending
on the type and number of processors purchased.
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Altered chips
in thousands of PCs?
Illegally accelerated chips fetch higher
prices on the gray market, can overheat and damage other
components
By Neal Boudette
May 12, 1998
MSNBC
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A growing number of illegally altered
Intel Corp. processors are finding their way into
personal computers in the United States and other
countries, a German magazine said Tuesday. C'T MAGAZINE
has begun distributing a program that can identify
Pentium II chips manipulated to run at higher speeds
— and fetch higher prices in the “gray
market” for critical computer components. “We
have no idea how many falsified chips are out there, but
in one week we had reports of more than a thousand,”
CT editor Christian Persson told Reuters.
“Worldwide, it could be many tens of thousands of
chips.”
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| May 12, 1998 |
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By Anthony Cataldo
May 11, 1998
EE Times
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A simmering conflict between Intel Corp.
and graphics-accelerator companies over how the 3-D
graphics pipeline should be partitioned bubbled up at the
recent Computer Game Developers Conference. The debate
centers on the geometry front end of the 3-D pipeline,
where transforms and lighting are calculated. Except in
workstations, geometry and lighting (a component of
primitive triangle calculation) are the exclusive domain
of the CPU. But graphics-chip vendors say that the CPU
has topped out its ability to churn out more triangles at
a rate that can keep up with the latest 3-D processors.
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By Rob O'Regan
May 11, 1998
PC Week On-Line
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Microsoft Corp. and Intel Corp. are
probably feeling a bit star-crossed these days, and who
can blame them? The standard-bearers of the PC industry
-- the "Wintel" duopoly -- are under attack on
multiple fronts. Federal and local governments are ready
to pounce, and many competitors are re-energized by an
opportunity to land some punches on their bigger rivals.
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Related Stories What if Wintel Fell?
Who'll Really Be Hurt If Wintel Falls?
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By Jesse Berst, Editorial Director
May 11, 1998
ZDNet AnchorDesk
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Could this be the turning point? Could
this be the first crack in the wall of monopoly power
that protects the Wintel duo (Microsoft and Intel)? As
I write this, two government groups are poised to sue
Microsoft for antitrust violations (click
for full story). And the Federal Trade Commission is
stepping up its long-standing examination of Intel (click
for full story).
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Related Stories What if Wintel Fell?
'Duopoly' still imperial, but no longer
impregnable
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By Reuters
May 11, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Intel Corp. Monday opened a $1.3 billion
microprocessor production factory in Leixlip, eastern
Ireland, which will be the first plant in Europe to
produce 0.25-micron processors. Intel said in a
statement that it also plans to convert an existing
facility at Leixlip to the 0.25-micron technology, to be
completed next year at a cost of several hundred million
dollars.
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May 11, 1998
BootWire
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Intel officials said today that a test
to check the authenticity of 300MHz Pentium IIs
appears to work correctly. The test, by German
hardware magazine c't, surfaced on the Internet last
week, in response to 233MHz and 266MHz Pentium IIs being
re-marked and sold as 300MHz parts.
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Related Stories How to spot Pentium II fakes
Acid Test
c't software exposes fake
Pentium II models
America seeing Pentium II fakes
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By Staff Writer
May 11, 1998
Asia Biz Tech
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With mass production of Intel Corp.'s
Merced (IA-64) next-generation, 64-bit microprocessor
expected to start in mid-1999, Japan's computer makers
already are at a turning point in their enterprise server
strategies. Some vendors are trying to concentrate their
management resources by rearranging and consolidating
their own platforms to prepare for the emergence of
Merced. Specifically, this consolidation means taking
advantage of a horizontal integration model, where each
computing element such as a processor, operating system
and application is provided by different vendors, into a
traditional vertical integration model, where each of
those components is provided by a single vendor. |
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By Sandy Chen
May 11, 1998
Electronic Buyers' News
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Hoping to build a more solid foundation
with Taiwan's PC and board makers, Intel chairman Andrew
S. Grove made a rare appearance Monday on the island to
drum up support for the company's current and future
processor lines. Speaking at the opening ceremonies of
Intel's (company profile) annual Technology Forum event
in Taipei, Grove outlined Intel's future, Pentium II
processor road map, showing everything from a low-end,
Celeron chip running at 333 MHz to a high-end
multiprocessing unit called Xeon running more than 500
MHz. There were really no surprises concerning Intel's
future road map, but the real blockbuster was the
appearance of Grove himself in Taiwan.
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| May 11, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
May 8, 1998
C/Net
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Intel is making settlement overtures to
Intergraph in an effort to end a legal dispute that has
become a central issue in the Federal Trade Commission's
investigation into Intel's business practices. Intel's
is adopting its conciliatory posture as the FTC considers
filing its own legal action by the end of the month. That
case would focus on how Intel allegedly uses chip
supplies to coerce computer vendors, according to
sources.
Last year, Intergraph filed an extensive federal
lawsuit against Intel principally alleging that the
chipmaker arbitrarily cut off Intergraph's supply of
microprocessors because it refused to license Intel
technology. Intel has denied the merit of the suit.
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Related Stories Intergraph wins Intel injunction
Intergraph: Intel fray causes loss
Intergraph CEO On Battling Intel
Text of the lawsuit
Intergraph vs. Intel home page
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May 11, 1998
The Register
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Negotiations between Intel and the
Federal Trading Commission may hand Intergraph a victory
of sorts in its antitrust action against the company.
Aside from claiming Intel has infringed its patents,
Intergraph is accusing the company of having materially
damaged its business by withholding vital information,
and of attempting to blackmail Intergraph into giving
Intel access to key technology. |
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May 8, 1998
The Register
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Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is set to
take on Intel in the server market as sources close to
the company confirmed today it has plans to produce
symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) versions of its
up-and-coming K7 technology next year. Intel has had
its own way in the server market over the last 18 months
as AMD struggled to launch and then produce its K6
processor. But the Alpha bus architecture AMD will use in
its Slot A K7 processor next year, will allow
manufacturers to produce machines and motherboards
capable of SMP configurations. The source also said that
while it was possible for AMD to configure the K6 to work
in multiprocessor configurations, that is unlikely to
happen.
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By Lisa DiCarlo
May 8, 1998
PC Week Online
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Lack of demand for IEEE 1394, a
promising high-speed digital bus interface, has caused
Intel Corp. to cancel plans to integrate support for it
in its next-generation 440BX chip set. Earlier Intel
(INTC) roadmaps had called for the company to include
integrated 1394 (aka FireWire) support in a beefier
version of the 440BX due late this year, according to
company officials. But after negative OEM feedback about
1394 integration, Intel, of Santa Clara, Calif., began
notifying OEM customers that support is indefinitely on
hold until market demand warrants integration.
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By Lisa DiCarlo
May 8, 1998
PC Week Online
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Already under the watchful eye of the
Federal Trade Commission, Intel Corp. (INTC) may be
setting itself up for closer government scrutiny with
plans to integrate more external functions into its
products. Under a project code-named Whitney, Intel
will build audio functions into the north bridge of a
forthcoming low-cost version of the 440BX chip set,
according to sources close to the Santa Clara, Calif.,
company.
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By Sandy Chen
May 11, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
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Despite being threatened with suits from
Intel Corp., Silicon Integrated Systems Corp. here is
moving ahead by sampling its first chip sets to support
Intel's low- and high-end Pentium II processors. The
chip sets--the SiS5600/5595 and the SiS5601/5595--are not
pin-compatible with Intel's comparable core-logic
devices. Still, SIS is bringing out what analysts believe
are low-priced but competitive offerings.
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May 5, 1998
The Register
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Intel has confirmed it will release a
300MHz version of its Celeron in the next month and has
told its OEMs that its Mendocino 333MHz processor with
128K of integrated cache will arrive in Q4. At a
briefing held yesterday in the US, the company confirmed
plans revealed here earlier but an Intel representative
said that it was moving from a 300MHz of Mendocino
directly to a 333MHz version.
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May 5, 1998
The Register
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A group of US resellers led by Ken Catto
(passimhas started a battle to prevent end users and
dealers being sold re-marked Pentium IIs. It has released
a preliminary specification which is aimed at describing
how genuine chips are badged and boxed. The group,
which subscribes to a news group
http://www.pro-desk.com/inside, notes that re-marking is
rife. Two weeks ago, the Taiwanese police arrested
individuals who had set up a massive counterfeit scam on
the island.
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By Adam Lashinsky
May 8, 1998
San Jose Mercury News
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Merrill Lynch & Co.'s Thomas P.
Kurlak and Mark Edelstone of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter
are having a $64 billion disagreement over Intel Corp.
(Nasdaq, INTC). One of these research analysts is going
to be wrong, and anyone who cares about Intel,
semiconductors, personal computers or tech stocks ought
to be paying attention. What's more, their intellectual
spat provides a rare window on how analysts affect stock
prices through the sheer force of their recommendations.
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By: Mark Hachman
May 8, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
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Although it’s only May, the lazy
days of summer may be already here for Intel Corp.’s
customers. Until Intel reinvents the mainstream desktop
PC in early 1999, the biggest headache for OEMs may be
figuring out Intel’s strategy in the sub-$1,000
segment. In the latest revision of its processor and
chipset roadmap, analysts said the only significant
surprise was the cancellation of the chipset that
supported the IEEE 1394 serial interface.
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By David Pendery
May 11, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
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Server manufacturers are gearing up for
the Pentium II Xeon chip from Intel that provides a
performance boost far surpassing Intel's recently
unveiled Pentium II Slot 1 processor. Among the
top-tier vendors that will launch systems based on the
400-MHz and 450-MHz chips are Compaq, NEC, IBM, and Dell.
IT managers deploying these systems should see dramatic
performance improvement thanks to Level 2 (L2) caching of
as much as 2MB and a system-speed L2 bus, effectively
doubling the bandwidth of previous generation servers.
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