In The Chips

VARBusiness

Usually, a very big part. In this week's VARBusiness cover story, Craig Barrrett and You, Rich sits down with Intel CEO Craig Barrett. But, just as they did last year with Bill Gates, VARBusiness talked to its readers first, and went in armed with over twenty specific questions directly from solution providers. They covered topics ranging from chip architectures, partner programs, product pricing and distribution, to the state of the economy and the role of Blue Man Group.

Also this week, Intel hosted its Developer Forum in San Francisco. Participants got to hear Barrett talk about talk about innovation as the route out of the recession, as well as hear the latest on Intel's Mobile Pentium 4, Xeon Server Chip Platform, InfiniBand Technology and 64-bit McKinley CPU.

HP/Compaq Countdown: 18 Days

Both sides continued the war of words in the HP/Compaq merger battle. Dissident board member and founder's son Walter Hewlett accused HP of planning big payouts to CEOs Carly Fiorina and Michael Capellas; charges the company denied. Meanwhile, Fiorina spent a day meeting with investors and analysts, laying out the case for the merger. HP Services' president Ann Livermore told analysts the integration was already "well under way".

Expected next: an announcement from Institutional Shareholder Services on their stance on the proposed merger. ISS clients control large blocks of HP and Compaq stock, and the firm's recommendation is expected to play a big role in the outcome of the votes. ISS's support of the Computer Associates board last year was crucial in turning back an attempted takeover of that company.

The Best of the Week

CRN's Barbara Darrow reports on the launch of Microsoft CRM, the company's long-awaited customer relations management initiative. She also talks to the other players in the CRM space about how they plan to respond. VARBusiness' Rob Wright reviews the changes at Novell, and CEO Jack Messman's plans to "improve channel relations and develop a stronger partner program while reshaping the corporate culture at Novell." One corporation that definitely needed a culture reshape was MarchFirst, according to a scorching bankrupcy trustee's report, which accuses MarchFirst management with 11 breaches of fiduciary duty.