Intel's Craig Barrett Says Pace Of Building The Internet Ecomony Must Quicken

Shows First Merced Platform Demonstration

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, PALM SPRINGS, Calif., Aug. 31, 1999 – Intel Corporation's president and CEO Craig Barrett told attendees at the Intel Developer Forum that in the future all homes will become e-homes and all business is moving to e-business. He encouraged engineers and developers to "quicken the pace" as they continue building the infrastructure for the Internet economy. Barrett highlighted the importance of the emerging Internet economy on everyone's future and showcased the infrastructure needed to support it today and tomorrow. He also demonstrated a new Merced processor-based platform and disclosed that Intel has begun shipment of the first engineering units of the forthcoming Merced processor to customers.

"Intel has been talking about its vision of a billion Internet-connected PCs and millions of servers generating one trillion dollars of annual e-commerce revenues for over a year," noted Barrett. "As this vision rapidly becomes a reality, the rate of Internet adoption and content creation is accelerating. Businesses must make themselves relevant to the Internet -- and do it quickly – or face possible extinction."

To illustrate his point, Barrett explained that Intel was rapidly transforming itself into the building block supplier of the Internet economy.

The Intel Developer Forum has become one of the most popular technology conferences in the industry. This forum has attracted over 2,500 hardware and software developers from around the world who will learn about Intel's technology direction over the next several months. This Intel Developer Forum -- "Advancing the Internet" -- features 13 technology tracks and more than 100 in-depth technical sessions and hands-on labs.

First Merced Platform Demonstration
Barrett revealed the first public Merced platform demonstration to the crowd. As the first processor in the IA-64 product family, the Merced processor is the ideal engine for e-business. The Merced processor will provide the computing capabilities that the evolving Internet economy demands, meeting the increasingly large memory, performance and high availability requirements of future data warehousing, e-business and other mission-critical server and workstation applications.

Barrett demonstrated the Merced processor on an engineering prototype platform running an early version of Microsoft's 64-bit Windows operating system and a 64-bit graphics application. The Merced-based system also ran a prototype IA-64 Linux Operating System with a web server. Intel is working with a number of major operating system vendors to develop optimized versions of their operating systems for the IA-64 architecture. Today's demonstration represents a key milestone in the development of the Merced processor and platform.

Intel also announced that it has begun shipment of the first engineering units of the Merced processor to its customers. The Merced program remains on track for processor production in mid-2000 with first server and workstation systems available during the same time frame.

Gelsinger Demonstrates e-Businesses and e-Homes
On the heels of Barrett's keynote address, Pat Gelsinger, vice president and general manager, Intel Desktop Products Group, captivated the audience with a series of demonstrations illustrating the computing vision Barrett articulated around e-businesses and e-homes.

Gelsinger showed how businesses can become more productive and competitive by implementing new computing models which will help companies evolve in this Internet dominated work environment. In the e-home setting, Gelsinger showed a number of high-performance "concept PCs" from several system manufacturers, highlighting their ease of use and innovative shapes and sizes. He also showed how digital entertainment content will be delivered to the home via the Internet.

High Speed Processors Shown
Both Barrett and Gelsinger showed a technology demonstration of a Pentium® III processor built using Intel's next generation 0.18 micron manufacturing process running at 800MHz. This demonstration showed the fastest standard processor Intel has ever shown running at room temperature. Intel will be shipping Pentium III processors based on 0.18 micron process technology in volume this fall.

About IDF
The Intel Developer Forum is a three-day intensive semiannual forum providing hardware OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) and IHVs (independent hardware vendors) in-depth information on Intel technologies and initiatives.

More information on the Intel Developer Forum can be found at developer.intel.com/idf.

Updated information between Intel Developer Forums is available by subscribing to the Intel Developer Update Magazine at www.intel.com/update/.

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