In an article entitled Intel Is Seeking Safety in Diversity, Business Week says:
With PC microprocessors accounting for 80% of Intel’s sales, the Santa Clara (Calif.) company has figured out that the only way it can grow faster than the PC market is by diversifying….Yet that strategy has risks, too, given that Intel will face a swarm of competitors.
The plan is to go after faster-growing markets, such as mobile and communications chips.
Intel’s new Itanium 2 processors, expected to be released in the next few months, could give it up to a 30% market share in the high-end server market.
Portable devices are another market Intel is making a major push into. Its XScale chip, already used in pocket PCs made by Toshiba and others, could soon debut in next-generation cell phones capable of streaming video and gaming.
The magazine recommends: “What should help Intel in all of these areas is its work on making cheaper, smaller chips.”
Here’s what Intel should do:
– Bring back its 486 and low processing power Pentium chips
– Create motherboards for assemblers, with 16/32 MB RAM and Networking (Ethernet, 802.11b) built-in
– Offer a add-on slot for multimedia (sound)
– Sell the base motherboard for no more than USD 40 (Rs 2,000)
This becomes the base for the Thin Client, and creates the platform for the next generation of 1 billion users. It also spawns a huge new industry serving first-time computer users.
It took 25 years for the world to sell 1 billion PCs. Intel should focus on getting the next 1 billion users – these are likely to be in the world’s emerging markets. They need computing like a utility for a few dollars a month.
A related story on Intel’s Itanium 2 on News.com: ” Analysts generally agree the new chip will shine on benchmarks and be popular in areas such as biosciences that require heavyweight numbers crunching…Unfortunately for Intel, the chip is arriving at a time when the entire industry is in a deep freeze. Corporate customers have drastically curtailed IT budgets and are less inclined to adopt or even test new technologies.”
