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January 1, 2002

The Dozen 2002

Intel Corp.

Santa Clara, Calif.

Intel, the keeper of Moore's Law, remains the change agent in enterprise computing. The company's influence now stretches beyond chips, beyond PCs, and into the fabric of the Internet, which Intel believes is the internal combustion engine for the global economy. As what were once separate technologies become integrated via a single, standards-based network, the rules of the IT game change. Intel is vying for the role of supreme rule-maker.

"Intel inside" has been the company's simple marketing message: It communicates not only the ubiquity of Intel's technology but also a kind of heads-down, low fanfare, engineer's humility that seems essential to the company's character. However, as it expands its reach, Intel's impact goes well beyond faster, better, and cheaper: We start talking about big dollars, big egos, and big companies that will do what's necessary to defend their turf. Intel can't hide inside when it comes to the enterprise.

A good example: The launch of Itanium, Intel's 64-bit processor (IA-64), put the company right in the middle of the pending merger of Hewlett-Packard and Compaq Computer Corp. Prior to the merger, Intel inherited the Alpha chip from Compaq. This year, as expected, Intel decided to shutter Alpha, even though it had a strong, if small, following in enterprise computing. HP then introduced HP-UX 11i, which with the slow progress of 64-bit Windows servers becomes perhaps the critical IA-64 implementation, from Intel's perspective. Thus, behind the scenes, Intel has a major stake in the success of the merger, even as it tries to manage relations with Microsoft and the gaggle of Windows IA-64 implementers, which includes Compaq.

Meanwhile, the company is paying far more than lip service to Linux. We are rapidly entering the age of cluster computing, and Linux, particularly in technical and life sciences fields, is serious business. Intel would love to see those huge server farms running IA-64 and processor technology Intel has planned for the future. So, that makes three OS alternatives: if Intel is the common ingredient, CIOs will look to Intel for more than just advice and consent.

INFINIBAND AND BEYOND

Intel plays a huge role in the future of storage management. Intel is a contributor to the InfiniBand Trade Association, which is promoting a new I/O specification designed to replace today's bus architectures. As Intel brings faster processors to market, users will want to move very large amounts of data through network storage systems. Thus, Intel's success depends on how well it can influence the storage industry to evolve and thus shake up the balance of power.

Who benefits from Intel's quiet revolution? Businesses, which will be able to afford intelligent computing on commodity platforms.