Intel Continues To Drive Industry Toward PC Ease Of Use

Intel Developer Forum Features Industry PC Quality Roundtable, Technology PC Building Blocks for 21st Century and Live e-Home Demonstration

INTEL DEVELOPER FORUM, PALM SPRINGS, Calif., Feb. 14, 2000 - Intel Corporation continues to drive the industry's effort toward creating PCs that are easier to use.

The Ease of Use crusade started at the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in spring 1999, when Pat Gelsinger, vice president and general manager, Intel's Desktop Products Group, challenged the industry to focus on easier to use PCs. With eight ease of use technical sessions, the Industry Ease of Use/PC Quality Roundtable and a live e-home demonstration at IDF Spring 2000, Intel continues to drive the industry in this effort.

To illustrate how ease of use is a key factor in making e-home a reality, Intel created a live demonstration featuring a Norman Rockwell-type set with actors interacting with powerful and stylish concept PCs and devices that extend the Internet throughout the home. Always connected, and always on, the PCs and computing devices show how natural and beneficial interactive home computing can be.

"The e-home demonstration is not a Jetson-like vision of the future," said Gelsinger. "It's a rapidly approaching reality because networking technology, powerful computing and broadband infrastructure will make it happen."

The products, technologies, and concept PCs displayed in the e-home demonstration are part of Intel's ongoing efforts to naturalize technology. Intel has again teamed up with industrial designers to create sleek, stylish concept PCs that would complement any room in the house. "We are already starting to see the fruits of the initiative with simplicity and style becoming visible elements in PCs today," said Steve Whalley, Intel's Ease of Use Initiative manager.

In addition to the e-home demonstration, Intel will offer eight related sessions educating the industry on aspects of ease of use such as the "Industrial Design and Building Blocks for 21st Century PCs." Tony Temple, vice president, Ease of Use, IBM Corp., is one of the featured speakers. Intel will also host the Industry Ease of Use/PC Quality Roundtable on Feb.18.

Products and Technology for the e-Home
The e-home demonstration at IDF shows the unlimited opportunities to enhance consumer lifestyles when PCs and devices are easily connected to each other and the Internet. The ten minute production demonstrates how accessing and sharing digital content such as audio, video and imaging can be a snap using products and technology available today. Using Home Phoneline Network Alliance (HPNA), today's broadband infrastructure, Universal Serial Bus (USB) and wireless technology, the e-home becomes a reality right in front of your eyes.

In the den, Anderson Velocity's concept PC Gozinta, is housed in a sleek, compact chassis. The Gozinta delivers plenty of power to serve as the home's interface to the Internet. Family members in the living room enjoy personalizing photographs on EDC's (Engineering Design Consultants) all-in-one concept PC named 'N Touch. This appealing and highly mobile PC is connected to the den PC through Intel® AnyPoint™ wireless networking solution. The home media center concept PC, designed by Fiori, is a PC-based digital TV. Connected to the den PC through Home PNA 2.0, the media center concept PC combines the high-quality entertainment of DTV with the interactivity of the PC. It takes interactive digital content and programming to new heights.

About Industry Ease of Use/PC Quality Roundtable
The Industry Ease of Use/PC Quality Roundtable was formed in August 1998 with an objective to drive awareness of consumer desire for easier PCs and identify opportunities to improve PCs. Current participants include: Intel, AOL, Aveo, Cisco, Compaq, Dell, Gateway, IBM, Lucent, NEC, Nortel Networks, and Visual Networks. "Enhancing ease of use for PC computing and high-speed communications has become increasingly important to our industry. The Industry Ease of Use/PC Quality Roundtable is helping to advance PC usability with a focus to improve the consumer's experience," said Temple.

The work group provides useful reports and guidelines to advance ease of use, such as Consumer PC and Internet Communications ease of use white papers, Initial Experience Predictor and Design for Supportability Guideline. To obtain these documents or for more information, please visit http://www.eouroundtable.com.

Intel's Ease of Use Initiative Building Blocks
The multi-year Intel Ease of Use initiative was established as a driving force to make the PC easier to use. Intel is providing hardware building blocks such as: Universal Serial Bus (USB), a true plug and play technology; Instantly Available, a power management technology allowing the PC to be always on and always available; improved motherboard designs such as Intel's FlexATX; Hardware Implementation guides; and innovative PC form factors to enable the migration of easier to use PCs.

Intel is working jointly with Microsoft in the Easy PC initiative, a multi-year effort to expand industry efforts towards easy setup, operation, expansion and maintenance of the PC.

About IDF
The Intel Developer Forum is Intel's premier technical forum comprising nearly 150 sessions and hands-on labs and more than 100 demonstrations of cutting-edge products and technologies. IDF attracts over 2,000 hardware and software developers from around the world, of whom nearly 30 percent are focused on software. Now in its third year, the semi-annual conference provides hardware OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), IHVs (independent hardware vendors), and ISVs (independent software vendors) with in-depth information on Intel technologies and initiatives. More information on the Intel Developer Forum can be found at http://developer.intel.com/idf. Updated information is available between Intel Developer Forums by subscribing to the Intel Developer Update Magazine at http://developer.intel.com/update/.

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