Intel boss predicts IT spend recovery
Intel chief executive Craig Barrett is being bullish about the future of IT spending, but has warned that factors outside the industry could throw the recovery off track.
Intel chief executive Craig Barrett is being bullish about the future of IT spending, but has warned that factors outside the industry could throw the recovery off track.
Link: Fears for IT recovery in 2003
In his opening address at the 13th annual Intel Developer Forum in San Jose, he said Microsoft’s decision to stop support for the Windows 95 and 98 operating systems, the spread of broadband and the global move towards using digital media by the young would see spending increase.
‘Youth has an insatiable desire for technology,’ said Barrett. ‘The only way forward is up for Intel, the question is how fast. Drop a few bombs on Iraq and consumer confidence will fall back.’
Current IT spending made up one per cent of global GDP and this allowed plenty of room for growth, Barrett said. And despite current IT industry woes the amount of traffic running through the internet backbone had grown steadily and consistently and showed no signs of slowing.
Intel’s central business was also of great value to the economy said Barrett. Processors were anti-inflationary as they offered regular increased functionality for less and less cost.
Barrett also predicted that Moore’s Law would certainly hold true for at least another ten years on the basis of technology that was in use already.
Intel had already built transistors as small as 32nm, a quarter of the current standard size, he said, and had developed software controlled microscopes that allowed them to be successfully built into working processors.