Intel shifts to multicore strategy for 2005
19 October, 2004
Intel has altered its plans to ship a 4GHz Pentium 4 processor
and will instead be focusing on making platform-level upgrades
to its entire lineup of chips.
Doug Cooper, country manager for Intel of Canada in Toronto,
said the Santa Clara, Calif.-headquartered microchip giant
intends to roll out its dual-core processors in 2005 and its
multicore chips shortly thereafter.
"There's three things we're focused on: Multicore processors
as a strategy, technologies that would best benefit our customers
such as HyperThreading, and in addition we'll be concentrating
on new platform features," he said. "We're going
to cancel our plans for releasing a 4GHz chip in favour of
these areas."
No press release to date has been issued on the subject,
but Cooper told eChannelLine Intel was still in the process
of informing its partners and customers of the shift in product
strategy.
"We've already discussed the issue with or are in the
process of discussing it with our customers," he said.
"Insofar as the channel is concerned . . . resellers
would be next on the list. I imagine we'll be talking about
it to them at our upcoming reseller conferences."
As for the 4GHz chip, Cooper said Intel's customers would
benefit more from a Pentium 4 chip with 2MB cache and lower
GHz.
"We have other keen technologies that can offer the
same benefits," he said. "You'll see this multicore
technology (more than one CPU running off a single chip) throughout
our form factors PCs, servers, mobile computers [in the
future]. At least you'll see the dual-core chips in 2005;
this is a fairly aggressive plan we're moving on."
The platform-level approach has spurred Intel's Centrino
mobile platform (which combines a mobile processor, chipset
and extended battery performance into a single box). Centrino
is Intel's fastest-growing product line, the company said.
Another report suggested Intel has had issues with its Grantsdale
chipset.
Cooper said it's an old matter, when an inventory imbalance
rose as a result of a technical issue on the chips.
"We were partly a victim of our own success," he
said. "When Grantsdale was first released we had issues
with the real time clock speed but that has been remedied
. . . we had excess inventory (with Prescott) and every company
in every industry has a range (of on-hand inventory) that
it's comfortable with."
According to Michelle Warren, IT industry analyst for Toronto-based
Evans Research Corporation, the challenges for Intel addressing
its channel will be in educating their client base with respect
to the new language and how it will affect its new technology
strategy.
"However, working to Intel's advantage and to the advantage
of reseller partners, is the already successful platform strategy
illustrated by Centrino," she pointed out. "The
positive response it received sets the standards for future
(including this one) Intel's platform computing initiatives.
Clients and resellers have already been introduced to the
concepts and have embraced it to date.
"Shifting the focus to multicore chips enables organizations
to capitalize on full, rich computing potential available
today and into the future."
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