Intel dwells on glowing vision of the future
Use of technology to see 'mini revolution' in next five years, predicts chief
Intel chief executive Craig Barrett forecast a mini revolution in the use of technology in the next five years.
Speaking at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco last week, Barrett said the next five years would see more changes in technology than the past 25.
Barrett said: "The transformation we're seeing with the convergence of computing and communications will begin to be applied to areas such as health care, life sciences, and new forms of computational innovation."
Intel confirmed that this year it will introduce 64-bit memory extension technology to its IA-32 architecture for server and workstation processors, bringing enterprise computing capabilities down to lower-end computers.
Shaun Frohlich, executive chairman at reseller Teksys, said: "Technology has changed dramatically over the last five years. But market change is not created by products and faster chips don't make customers spend more."
Other announcements at the show included: the Centrino 2, code-named Dothan, will ship this year; Xeon chips with 64-bit extensions could ship within two months; Itanium 2 will offer up to twice the performance of Xeon by 2007; a new laptop design will feature fingerprint security, voice over IP and a camera; and Wi-Fi, GSM and Bluetooth will be combined in a normal-sized phone handset.