Intel CEO Sees $125B Impact from New Core Chips

$125 billion -- that's how much Intel CEO Paul Otellini expects the company's new Core processor family will generate for the tech industry. The better-performing Sandy Bridge chips set the stage for lighter and more innovative laptops. But with current trends, an analyst said, Sandy Bridge may also save Intel from a "perfect storm."

Intel CEO Paul Otellini is betting big on Sandy Bridge architecture. At the Consumer Electronics Show, Intel officially introduced its second-generation Core processor family, and Otellini predicted the chips will generate $125 billion in revenue for the tech industry.
Sandy Bridge offers new features like Intel Quick Sync Video, Intel HD Graphics, Intel Wireless Display, and Intel Insider with collaborations with CinemaNow, Twentieth Century Fox, and Warner Bros., among others.
Intel said the new processors will be used in more than 500 desktop and laptop PCs from all major OEMs worldwide throughout the coming year. The chips offer faster computing performance and great battery life, and set the stage for the design of lighter and more innovative laptops.
Intel Answers Customers
For all the promises -- and all the realities -- Intel's second-generation Core processors should be considered within the context of broader personal-computing issues and trends, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT .
Those trends, as he sees them, are ongoing robust sales of traditional PCs and notebooks; quickly ramping sales of portable devices like tablets; the continuing confluence of PCs, notebooks and tablets with smartphones; media phones and other handheld computing devices; the expanding use of PCs to stream media; the increasing ubiquity of Wi-Fi and high-speed mobile web access; and growing interest among premium content creators and distributors looking to leverage their products.
"Giving your best customers what they need and want is a smart move in virtually any business, but Intel's second-gen Core arrives at an especially challenging time for the consumer electronics industry in general and microprocessor vendors in particular," King said. "Some may consider this a 'perfect storm' of sorts for Intel, with myriad competitors battering the company and its traditional markets from every side. And it may well have been had the company not been driving new developments around its 32nm Sandy Bridge microarchitecture."
What About AMD?
King said the launch of the original Intel Core family at last year's CES saw new products burying previous benchmarks and delivering features and performance unseen in general-purpose PCs and notebooks. CES 2011 witnessed an even more powerful Intel launch, with the second-generation Core offering remarkably upgraded computer performance and the absolute best integrated graphics capabilities the company has ever delivered.
"This is not to say that Intel is trying to be all things to everyone. The company was clear in noting that graphics accelerators from Nvidia and others still have a place in high-end gaming and other specialty applications," King said. "But by incorporating technologies capable of supporting sophisticated mainstream games, HD content, and other sophisticated applications directly into the second-gen Core architecture, Intel has created a platform for developing ever thinner, lighter and more mobile computers and consumer products with breakthrough visual performance."
King said AMD's Brazos chips also offer a compelling blend of graphics and general-purpose features, and the company has staked a great deal -- perhaps even its entire future -- on the launch at CES 2011. King also does not expect GPU or ARM vendors to cede territory gracefully or reduce their own ambitions.
"But these newest Intel solutions prove that the company intimately understands the importance of re-thinking, re-building and re-invigorating one's core competencies," King said. "Leadership in visual computing, it seems, requires vendors to be sharp-eyed and far-seeing."