Processors Toolkit

Intel head attacks complacency

Michael Kanellos and John G. Spooner CNET News.com

Published: 02 Jun 2004 12:35 BST

If there's one thing Intel chief executive Craig Barrett really enjoys, it's proving his critics wrong.

Three years ago, Wall Street complained the company was overspending on factories and capital expansion. But Barrett, a former Stanford engineering professor who became chief executive in March 1998, stuck with his plan. In the end, Barrett had the last word as the investments paved the way for Intel to crank out new notebook and server chips at a time when business was picking up.

Barrett, who has been with Intel since the 70s, has led the company through some of its best times as well as through some of its worst. In the run-up of the late 90s, Intel romped to one record-breaking quarter after another.

But Intel then suffered along with the rest of the technology industry after the bursting of the dot-com bubble and the subsequent economic recession. The company was also forced to retreat from money-losing ventures, including the manufacturing of Intel-branded consumer devices such as digital cameras.

Barrett has since navigated the company into new categories, including the creation of chips for digital home devices. Intel is also moving into dual-core processors for upcoming desktop and notebook lines. Dual-core chips can provide far better performance than traditional single-core chips.

With less than a year left to go before turning over the reins to heir-apparent Paul Otellini, Barrett is hardly in a retiring frame of mind. A card-carrying member of the Silicon Valley elite, Barrett is one of the more vocal high-profile technology executives on the subject of offshore outsourcing and the threat to American competitiveness. He recently sat down with a group of editors and reporters from ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com, speaking his mind on topics ranging from the folly of industry alliances to the fecklessness of zigzagging politicians.

You travel the globe a lot. How do you think the United States ranks versus the rest of the world in terms of technology adoption?
The US has a whole series of complacencies about it. It is complacent on its economic development platform. It is complacent on its infrastructure platform. It is complacent on the whole issue of promoting research and development. So you go down the list -- education, infrastructure, research and development -- and the US is basically complacent.

In fact, we have been having this great argument in the press about offshoring, or offshore outsourcing. The press in general, the politicians in general, have not picked up the issue that you need to be competitive. The fact is that the US is pulling further behind from an infrastructure standpoint and the dismal aspect of the US education system. It is very difficult to go to Washington, D.C., and discuss those three aspects of competitiveness with anybody.