Intel focuses on a single PC platform

Intel has revealed that it has re-engineered its worldwide business and standardised on a single PC platform.

Louis Burns, vice president and information director at Intel US, told delegates at a Computacenter conference in Wembley, England, that Intel will move everything, including hardware, network operating systems and other operating systems to a single platform by the end of the year.

The chip giant would not say whether it was buying the machines from outside or whether it was using kit that it built itself.

Burns said Intel, which now has 60,000 employees worldwide, processed 1.5 million emails per day. He admitted that Intel had surveyed its systems in 1995 and found that some of them were lacking.

'Our total cost of ownership in 1995 was $9,324,' he said. 'That compared to the best of class at the time which was $4,908.' Burns confirmed that Intel had now adopted one standard worldwide.

Burns said previously that Intel had a policy, established by its CEO Andy Grove, which gave departmental rights to buy whatever PCs they wanted.

That, he said, was not a God-given right, but an Andy-given right. He said Intel has now migrated 50,000 plus clients to Windows NT across the world.

'Now our total cost of ownership is $6,189, compared to $9,324,' he insisted.

'My hardware cost has gone up, but it has gone up consciously.'