March 1st, 2005
Barrett's last word: Don't bore the kids
Craig Barrett gave his last Intel Developer Conference keynote, as he heads off into semi-retirement. In May, the 65-year-old Barrett becomes Chairman of the Board, succeeding Andy Grove, and 54-year-old Paul Otellini takes the CEO slot. You could call it a generational shift, but both joined Intel in 1974–Barrett from academia and expertise in materials science and Otellini with a degree in economics.
The transition is occurring at time that Intel has tremendous opportunities and challenges. [See ZDNet's full coverage of Intel Developer Conference.] The entire planet is going digital, and Intel wants to be at the center of computing and communications in the data center, office, home, hospital car, cell phone, and space. On the downside, AMD trumped Intel with its 64-bit x86 and dual core initiatives, and the Itanium sales and third-party support have been lackluster so far. Intel hasn’t been able to crack the mobile phone market, but Barrett said that the company is doubling down on the handset market this year. He also said that 85 percent of Intel processors would be dual core next year.
But Barrett didn’t address competition, turn sentimental or discuss his "legacy" in his swan song presentation. He mostly stuck to his straight ahead, direct, hard core engineer persona, even while jiving with the guys from Pimp My Ride, who demonstrated a tricked out Chrysler 300 with a built in laptop PC for entertainment and Internet connectivity via wireless (Centrino, of course). An ordinary police cruiser has most of the same technology, but it’s clearly not as pimped out.
Barrett noted that this year is the 40th anniversary of Moore’s Law, which he described as the "foundation of what we are about." He doesn’t expect Moore’s Law to abate any time soon, with processor manufacturing going from 65 nanometer this year to 22 nanometer in 2011, and possibly 5 nanometer further out.
"We have been forecasting the death of CMOS processor 15 years out for the last 20 years. If it runs out of gas with basic transistor we will need another electron switching technology — such as quantum dot, polymer layer or nanotubes." He said that Intel has a multitude of research projects with universities around the world investigating new processor technologies.
Barrett did get on his soapbox to talk about the innovation, especially as it applies to the future of the tech industry and the way we work and play. He cited reforming the education system in the U.S. as a critical need. Echoing Bill Gates’ recent comments, Barrett said, "The biggest ticking time bomb is the sorry state of K-12 education system– other countries are reaching parity with and exceeding us." He called upon the government to foster innovation by funding education, especially for math, science and engineering.
He also knocked the state of broadband, which he described as half-assed in the U.S. Intel has made a big investment in building WiMax, which Barrett called a disruptive technology that will "change how we think about connectivity." He expects WiMax to solve the last mile problem by 2006 or 2007 in every country. Let’s hope so…everyone should have 50-megabits per second.
Barrett found a kindred spirit in the presence of Burt Rutan, the legendary commercial space pioneer, who joined him on the stage. Rutan described government efforts in space exploration as extremely boring and conservative, and as the "best way to have no breakthroughs" and create a generation of uninspired kids.
Barrett summed up his keynote, and perhaps his philosophy as follows: "Our job is to use our knowledge, material, capabilities and ideas to provide building blocks for innovation for next generation. The only limitation we set on ourselves are our own limitations. You can’t be afraid of failure."
Echoing Rutan, Barrett ended his remarks by asking the audience to take a vow to create technology that won’t bore the next generation of kids. I’m not sure if that’s at the heart of Intel, but it’s a good sentiment…
Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com, has more than 20 years of experience as an editor and journalist covering technology. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
