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Intel Chairman Barrett Seen Many PCs

Intel Chairman Craig Barrett has used a lot of PCs in the past 25 years. He`s familiar with all kinds of PCs which he had seen during his long career at Intel. The company`s role in advancing the PC market came almost out of desperation, as it struggled in the face of competition from Japanese memory manufacturers.

Intel`s decision was to invest in PC processors, and that has worked out fairly well for the California-based company, which went on to become the major PC and server chip supplier. Despite the competition, Intel still commands 73 percent of the market. Barrett, who steered Intel throughout the late 1990s and early part of the current decade, talked last week about the development of the PC market and the future of the PC itself.

His very first PC was an Osborne, which Barrett won in a contest run by (former Compaq executive) Ben Rosen at one of his conferences once a year for guessing what the compound growth rate of the high-tech industry would be during the last couple of years. It was the "old sewing box" version. Up until 10 years ago he, as well as most of the people around, had no idea the PC market would develop so much. However, the later expectations turned out to be true, as Intel and the PC world is now a major part of everyone`s lives today.