To help drive down the costs of business computing, we launched our Wired for Management initiative in September. Leading hardware and software suppliers joined us in announcing a series of specifications and products expected to make business PCs easier to upgrade, diagnose and repair remotely. For example, a new hardware monitoring chip tracks environmental conditions such as temperature and voltage, and reports to the central management software, which responds promptly to abnormal conditions. Our manufacturing performance continues to improve, even as we add new facilities and advances to increasingly complex production processes. We built our newest factory, Fab 12 in Chandler, Arizona, in record time, going from ground breaking to production in 23 months. The plant also achieved record product yields on ramp-up, trimming months off time to market and validating our policy of copying new manufacturing processes exactly from development lab to production floor. In 1996, we expanded our corporate giving and community programs in response to enormous employee enthusiasm. "Intel Involved" links employee volunteers with projects in their interest areas: building homes with Habitat for Humanity, teaching computing skills in schools, protecting local wetlands, reading to children and more. In 1996 Intel employees around the world volunteered a total of 106,000 hours of labor to help make our communities better places to live and work. It sounds futuristic, but it's here: For the first time, a simple low-cost, PC-based video phone is available to home PC users (133-MHz Pentium(R) processor minimum). The Intel Video Phone with ProShare(R) technology, introduced to market in 1996, delivers quality video communications over ordinary telephone lines. Major PC OEMs have incorporated the technology into their current PCs, and developers have embraced the standards, ensuring compatibility among various video phone products. Previous Page | Next Page Table of Contents | Feedback | www.intel.com | Investor Information Legal Notices (C) Intel Corporation Content published April 8, 1997.