| July 2, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
July 1, 1998
C/Net
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Intel will temporarily close two of its
chipmaking plants for nine days beginning this weekend as
it starts a "voluntary separation" program to
reduce its workforce, CNET NEWS.COM has learned. The
temporary plant closures--to affect 1,700 workers--and
the job reduction are aimed at cutting costs in a
slower-than-expected market. Closing the fabrication
facilities will help reduce chip supplies, while the
employee severance program will reduce the overall
headcount.
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Today's Related Stories |
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July 2, 1998
The Register
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A US company has said it will ship
Centaur/IDT's WinChip processors in its machines.
Millenium Electronics is offering a sub-$500 system using
the processor. PCs the company will ship include
systems running at 180MHz, 200MHz, 225MHz and 240MHz,
with the first two incorporated in the sub $500 market.
The systems, dubbed the NetRam PCs, will include
integrated video and SoundBlaster sound, said Millenium.
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By Reuters
July 1, 1998
C/Net
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Intergraph president Jim Meadlock
minimized the importance of Intel patent counterclaims
made earlier this month against the Huntsville, Alabama,
company, as the workstation maker projected that
second-quarter revenue will be flat with the first
quarter due to its patent infringement lawsuit the
chipmaking giant. "If the patents are so
pertinent, it looks like they would have mentioned them
some time during the past two years of negotiations and
litigation," said Meadlock in a statement.
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July 1, 1998
BootNet
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Intergraph fired another salvo at Intel
this week as the two companies continue to push their
legal fight into the court of public opinion. Intergraph
CEO Jim Meadlock downplayed Intel's countersuit (alleging
patent infringement) as immaterial and a ploy. Meadlock
said that even if Intel's claims of infringement were
true the financial impacts are far less than what
Intergraph believes it is owed from Intel.
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By Andy Patrizio
July 1, 1998
TechWeb
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Now that Intel has raised the curtain on
its Pentium II Xeon chips, many are wondering which
operating system will be the gas for the hot-rod
computers due later this year from Compaq, Dell, and
others. The answer depends on who you ask.
Analyst opinion is split between Windows NT and Unix.
Some say NT's dominance is inevitable, while others
believe Xeon offers Unix a chance to make significant
inroads in the Intel market.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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July 2, 1998
The Register
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Intel is to shut down two plants for a
nine day period, starting this July 4 weekend - 1,700
workers in two fabs at Aloha, Oregon will be sent home
without pay, and the legend of Intel as a company all of
whose fabs run flat-out all the time will be dispelled. Both
of the fabs currently operate 0.35 micron technology,
although one is being refitted to run 0.25 micron. Intel
said its reasoning behind the closures was market
conditions, but while chips built with older processes
will be less in demand than 0.25 micron, this isn't
really where Intel's problems lie.
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| July 1, 1998 |
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By Robert Lemos
June 30, 1998
ZD Net News
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The last Intel Corp. loyalist in the
retail market gave in on Tuesday, as Hewlett-Packard Co.
said it would put an Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
processor in two new retail PCs. HP's move to include
the AMD K6-2 in products marks the end of significant
resistance in the retail market to non-Intel processors,
as HP was the last of the top four retail PC makers to
use only Intel processors.
"Customers are looking for another price
cut," said Matt Sargent, industry analyst with
market survey firm ZD Market Intelligence, a sister
company to ZDNN. "You really can't stay with
Intel-only and remain competitive in the market."
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Today's Related Stories |
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July 1, 1998
The Register
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Intergraph said that it would report
flat turnover for its third quarter, compared to the $246
million it turned over in its first quarter. That
means the company is likely to post a loss. In its second
quarter period last year, it turned in $288.6 million but
made a loss of $16 million.
Intergraph has also warned that its third financial
quarter is likely to be affected adversely, and has cited
its continuing legal fight with Intel as one of the major
factors affecting its turnover and profits.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Michael Kanellos
June 30, 1998
C/Net
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The first half is over, and it hasn't
been pretty. Slowing demand, lower prices, and
increased competition over an ever-increasing array of
products have prompted a number of analysts to reduce
their earnings estimates for Intel in recent weeks. The
company is expected to report earnings of approximately
62 to 65 cents a share on slightly lower revenues when it
delivers its financial results on July 14, down from
earlier predictions of 69 cents a share.
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By PC Week Online Staff
June 30, 1998
PC Week
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Intel Corp. lost the first round of its
current bout with the Federal Trade Commission yesterday
when a judge ruled that the chip giant must respond to
the government's antitrust lawsuit by July 13 without
further clarification of the charges against it. In a
request filed June 19 to James Timony, an administrative
law judge with the FTC, in Washington, Intel asked that
the agency clarify in which markets it alleges that Intel
has a monopoly.
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| Today's Related Stories |
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By Michael Kanellos and Brooke Crothers
June 30, 1998
C/Net
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Hewlett-Packard launched a line of home
PCs using processors from Advanced Micro Devices,
becoming the third top-tier vendor to adopt chips made by
one of Intel's closest rivals. Some of HP's newest
Pavilion models will use AMD’s K6-2, which is
designed to handle multimedia applications such as 3D
graphics better than the standard K6 processor. The new
models will come with 300- and 333-MHz versions of the
K6-2.
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AMD wins
HP Pavilion for K6-2
Company claims major victory, but HP
still swings both ways
July 1, 1998
The Register
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AMD has scored another win with its K6-2
processors. Hewlett Packard said that it will use 300MHz
and 333MHz version of the 3D, socket seven processor in
two of its Pavilion consumer PCs. Last month, IBM said it
would use the K6-2 chip in some of its Aptiva machines. HP
said that the models using the K6-2 are the Pavilion 6330
and the Pavilion 6550. The machines come with 512K of
level two cache, 48/64Mb of synchronous DRAM, 4/8Gb hard
drives, 24-speed CD drives and built-in 56K fax modems.
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By Will Wade
June 30, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
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Advanced Micro Devices Inc. here today
announced it has landed another major design win for its
K6-2 microprocessor in an agreement to supply the
low-cost MPU to Hewlett Packard Co. for a line of
Pavilion PCs. This agreement is the latest step in
AMD's efforts to lock in as much as 30% of the central
processor market for desktop PCs by 2001. AMD's
processors are now used in desktop computers from Compaq
Computer Co. and IBM Corp., and the Sunnyvale-based chip
makers said it expects to see more design wins in the
future.
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By Gabrielle Jonas
June 30, 1998
TechInvestor
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Intergraph shares fell Tuesday after the
company said it will report second quarter revenue flat
compared with the previous quarter. Intergraph (company
profile) laid the blame squarely on the shoulders of
Intel, with which it is engaged in a lawsuit. Shares of
Intergraph [INGR] closed down 5/16 to 8 9/16 on the news,
while Intel [INTC] stock fell 1 11/16 to 74 1/8.
For the first quarter, Intergraph posted a loss of 67
cents a share on $245.8 million in sales. According to
First Call, analysts were expecting the company to show a
loss of 17 cents per share in the second quarter.
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By Jeff Pelline and Michael Kanellos
June 30, 1998
C/Net
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Intergraph said today that its projected
second-quarter revenues will come in flat compared with
the first quarter, blaming slower-than-expected recovery
related to its lawsuit against Intel. "Based on
the current level of cooperation from Intel, Intergraph
now expects the revenue recovery to be delayed by an
additional quarter," the company said in a
statement.
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| June 30, 1998 |
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By Michael Kanellos
June 29, 1998
C/Net
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Intel suffered a minor setback Friday
when an administrative law judge rejected the chipmaker's
motion to compel the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to
define the issues in its antitrust case. Intel was
seeking an order that would compel the commission to
state which markets it believes Intel has been inflicting
unwarranted monopoly power.
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June 28, 1998
The Register
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The Federal Trading Commission (FTC) has
issued an extraordinary 'white paper' to key academics
and legal brains in the US, in an apparent attempt to
'spin-doctor' comment on its action against Intel. The
paper (available at http://www.ljx.com/LJXfiles/antitrustsuits/ftcrelease.html)
goes some distance further than the FTC has so far
traveled in the actual antitrust suit, but is regrettably
in many areas only semi-intelligible. For example:
"Does this case involve in expansive reading of
monopolization law?" Do you expand if you read
antitrust law? Bill Gates' famous antitrust dictionary
may be needed, but we suggest you read the document,
switch on Word grammar checking and then marvel at how
little is underlined in green before you run off to
Microsoft for help.
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June 28, 1998
The Register
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Intel today unveils its long-awaited
Xeon server chip with the support of a bevy of hardware
vendors, including IBM, Compaq and Dell. The
introduction by Intel will be of a 400MHz processor, with
the price of the processor at an estimated $1,120 when
bought in units of 1,000.
Last week, Intel acknowledged there was an
"erratum" caused by conflicts between the
processor and the chip set which supports it, but claimed
that it already had a workaround being tested by its
OEMs. Intel hopes to make substantially larger margins on
Xeon processors than on its Pentium II and Celeron range
of CPUs, despite the fact that the Slot Two devices use
substantially the same technology as its less expensive
devices.
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Today's Related Stories |
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By Robert Lemos
June 29, 1998
ZD Net News
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Intel's newest processor is giving its
aristocratic server and workstation rivals the willies.
Despite a price considered hefty in the PC industry, the
Xeon manages to undercut its well-heeled competitors. "When
you look at the performance and the price of Xeon-based
systems, it certainly beats other processors," said
Alex Yost, spokesman for IBM Corp.'s Netfinity group. His
company also manufactures the PowerPC -- used in Macs and
high-end servers and workstations.
Looking for a piece of the PC server and workstation
pie, Compaq Computer Corp. , Hewlett-Packard Co., and IBM
turned out at the Intel event, despite the fact that the
three companies make processors that will most likely be
undermined by Intel's Xeon.
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By Andy Patrizio
June 29, 1998
TechWeb
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Intel marks the end of the Pentium Pro
and the beginning of Intel's push into enterprise
computing Monday with the release of the Pentium II Xeon
chips. The Xeon family is not significantly different
from the current Pentium II line because it uses the same
P6 core and 100-Mhz input/output bus. But the Xeon does
have a larger cache -- up to 2 megabytes of Level 2 cache
-- which runs at the same clock speed as the central
processing unit (CPU).
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June 29, 1998
U-Geek
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Intel Corp. admitted to problems in
their 450NX chipset designed to work with the Xeon chip
and in motherboards running up to four processors at
once. The 450NX chipset, and thus any configurations
containing the chipset, will be delayed by a few weeks.
The 450GX chipset is still on track and configurations
designed to handle one or two Xeon processors should not
be affected. |
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By Michael Kanellos
June 29, 1998
C/Net
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Computer makers joined Intel in
announcing new corporate lines based on the Xeon Pentium
II processor, though a bug and relatively scarce supply
may delay the most powerful multiprocessor systems. A
glitch that manifests itself when Xeon chips are used in
4-processor server configurations will delay final
testing of those machines until approximately July 17. As
a result, "4-way" servers from direct vendors
such as Dell won't be out until about the middle of next
month, while traditional vendors such as IBM will release
systems in two to three months.
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By Peter Clarke
June 29, 1998
EE Times
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"There are 50 million PCs out there
with USB connector ports. Most of them are totally
empty." That's how Nathan Brookwood, an analyst at
the Gartner Group's Dataquest Inc. market-research
consultancy, summed up the scant impact the 12-Mbit/s
Universal Serial Bus has had in two and a half years of
existence. Others put the number of PCs with empty USB
host ports as high as 60 million, but according to most
industry watchers USB peripherals are on their way.
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By C/Net Staff
June 30, 1998
C/Net
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Intel's pitching improved chips at the
high-end market, while cutting costs at the low-end. It
has released a Pentium II-style processor intended for
high-end workstations and servers. Xeon can utilize four
processors at once. But a bug is delaying the debut of
the fastest "4-way" servers. The chip will
allow the company to recover lost profit margins in the
low end of the PC industry. In the meantime, reducing the
cost of processors for portable PCs paves the way for
more Pentium models around the closely watched $1,000
mark. |
Many linked
articles from this article |
| Today's Related Stories |
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June 30, 1998
The Register
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Intel duly unveiled its Xeon processor
in London today and claimed what it described as
unprecedented support of 18 PC and midrange vendors for
its Slot Two solution. But the company said that the
Pentium Pro still has a life, as corporate users move
from the old design to the new.
Rob Eckelmann, MD of Intel's EMEA group, said that the
introduction of the Xeon marked a change from its
previous architectural designs. "We're moving into
areas which are real hardcore enterprise computing,"
he said. "What has been a vertical market has become
much more homogeneous. This is very much a solution
product, including software support and manageability
features."
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By Carmen Nobel
June 29, 1998
PC Week Online
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All the publicity about a recently
discovered bug didn't stop Intel Corp. from formally
introducing its long-awaited Pentium II Xeon processor
for servers and workstations. At a press event here
today, the company announced several benchmark test
results intended to show that Xeon is indeed better,
smarter and faster than its Pentium predecessors.
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By Will Wade
June 29, 1998
Semiconductor Business News
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Intel Corp. today introduced its latest
microprocessor, a 32-bit chip aimed at the high-end
server and workstations markets. This further indicates
the company's strategy to offer differentiated products
for each major market segment. The launch at company
headquarters here was slightly marred by the delayed
release of one version of the new Pentium II Xeon chip,
after the company conceded last week that there was a bug
in the device and it would require another three weeks of
testing (see June 25 story ).
The 400 MHz Xeon features a 100 MHz system bus and a
large L2 cache, and Xeon-based systems can be configured
to run up to eight processors in parallel. However, it is
the four-way configuration, using the 450NX chipset, that
contains the glitch, and which will not be available
until next month.
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By Mark Hachman
June 29, 1998
Electronic Buyer's News
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Silicon Valley Intel Corp. signaled a
renewed push into the workstation and server marketplace
today by formally launching its Slot 2 microprocessor,
the Xeon. Two versions of the Xeon were introduced: a
400 MHz chip with 512 Kbytes of level 2 cache for $1,124;
and a 400 MHz version with 1 Mbyte of cache for $2,836.
Prices reflect 1,000-unit quantities.
Customers said they would begin to ship two-way and
four-way servers about the third quarter of this year,
because of the complexity of their products, as well as
the acknowledged Xeon erratum.
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By James Niccolai and Elinor Mills
June 30, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
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Accompanied by the usual abundance of
vendor support, Intel introduced here Monday its new
Pentium II Xeon processor, designed to run mid-range and
higher-end servers and workstations. The chip's larger
and faster Level 2 cache, 100-MHz system bus and
multiprocessing capabilities allow systems to handle
demanding applications including online transaction
processing, corporate data warehousing, digital content
creation, and electronic and mechanical design
automation, Intel officials said.
"This technology will enable systems based on
Intel's architecture to extend further into the
enterprise, where Intel has not been before," said
John Minor, vice president and general manager of Intel's
enterprise server group, speaking at a launch event at
Intel's campus.
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| June 29, 1998 |
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By Dan Goodin
June 26, 1998
C/Net
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When the Federal Trade Commission sued
Intel on June 8, it distributed the complaint and a press
release describing the case to all who were interested. But
for an elite few, the FTC distributed something more: a
silver-tongued white paper providing "talking
points" for academics and other legal pundits who
talk to the press.
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Other Related
Stories The
Intel Talking Points
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By Edward F. Moltzen,
June 26, 1998
Computer Reseller News
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A spokeswoman for the U.S. Federal Trade
Commission said the government has not responded -- and
may not respond -- publicly to Intel's demand for more
specifics in its antitrust case prior to the first
administrative hearing on the matter. The FTC, which is
normally tight-lipped, was served earlier this week with
papers from Intel (company profile), in Santa Clara,
Calif., demanding the government offer a detailed
response as to the market the chip maker dominates, after
the commission said Intel wrongly used its monopoly power
to strongarm other companies out of litigation.
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By Andy Santoni
June 26, 1998
InfoWorld Electric
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Yet another semiconductor company is
planning to take on Intel with a low-cost x86 clone,
readying a low-power chip aimed initially at $1,000
notebooks. Rise Technology, based a stone's throw from
Intel's headquarters in Santa Clara, Calif., will
describe its chip in detail for the first time at the
Microprocessor Forum, in nearby San Jose, this October.
"The mP6 is an x86-compatible processor targeted
at the sub-$1,000 PC market," said Keith
Diefendorff, editor in chief of Microprocessor Report, in
Sunnyvale, Calif. With its low-cost focus, the new CPU
will more likely compete with other Intel competitors
than with Intel itself, Diefendorff noted.
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By Carmen Nobel
June 26, 1998
PC Week Online
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A bug that will delay the shipment of
four-way Pentium II Xeon servers does not seem to be
causing too many headaches among organizations
anticipating systems based on Intel Corp.'s
next-generation processor. The bug in the 450NX chip set,
which causes crashes or spontane-ous reboots in servers
with four or more Pentium II Xeon processors, could delay
the delivery of some four-way systems by up to two
months, said officials at several server makers. Intel,
of Santa Clara, Calif., sent a letter to server
manufacturers this week saying the 450NX bug was easily
fixed by a flash ROM update, which would be
"validated" by July 17.
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June 29, 1998
Intel Corporation
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Intel Corporation today introduced a new
family of branded processors designed to meet the
demanding requirements of mid-range and higher servers
and workstations. Consistent with Intel’s strategy
to design and deliver unique processor products targeted
for specific market segments, the new Pentium® II
Xeon™ processors feature technical innovations
specifically designed for workstations and servers which
utilize demanding business applications such as Internet
services, corporate data warehousing, digital content
creation, electronic and mechanical design automation. In
a show of broad industry support, providers of advanced
application and operating systems joined with leading
workstation and server vendors to showcase the
performance of the Pentium II Xeon processor at
today’s introduction. |
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