Management Toolkit

Intel's fifth chief

Charles Cooper CNET News.com

Published: 12 Aug 2004 12:00 BST

Sometime next spring, Paul Otellini will succeed Craig Barrett to become the fifth chief executive in Intel's history.

Winning the coveted job after a career at Intel that began in 1974 is undoubtedly a plum for Otellini. But the first non-engineer to take the helm will be in charge of an Intel suddenly struggling to regain its footing after a series of stumbles.

Earlier this summer, Intel said design problems would force a delay in the introduction of a chipset for Pentium M notebooks. That followed a delay in the launch of its latest Pentium M notebook processor, from January or February until May.

Intel also took longer than expected to ready its latest Pentium 4 chip, the Prescott. The chip technically shipped on time -- it went out to PC makers before the company's stated goal, the end of 2003 -- but was not available in systems until February.

The company also blamed manufacturing glitches for the recall of bad controller hub chips, which affected the launch of the Intel Express 900-series of desktop chipsets.

All this contributed to the release of a companywide memo from Barrett urging Intel employees to take an attitude check and do a better job of executing on plans.

But temporary product delays and production problems aside, Intel still dominates the chip business with more than an 82 percent share of the PC processor business. Otellini, who recently met with a group of reporters and editors from ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com, talked about the upcoming transition and what he thinks will be some of the defining themes in technology.

Q: You would be the first non-engineer chief executive in Intel's history. Will Intel under Paul Otellini look differently than it does now?
A: I hope it does not look any different. I am a product guy. Of my 30 years at Intel, I think I spent five or six years in finance, and the rest was in product development or sales and marketing. I like products; I get involved very deeply in the product decisions around here -- probably more so than some of my engineers would like.

Where do you think your stamp will be -- especially as Intel moves into the digital home?
It is way too premature to project the answer to that one. Who knows? One thing about Intel is that we have had a series of very seamless transitions, from Bob (Robert Noyce) to Gordon (Moore) to Andy (Grove) to Craig (Barrett), and you really do not notice an abrupt transition in any one of those things.