Craig Barrett and You
Sure, Cisco can boast that close to 90 percent of its products go through resellers, and Microsoft can say it touches a channel of more than 34,000 partners. But it's a good bet that if you make a living as a solution provider,whether it's box-pushing, system-building, integration and consulting, or managed services,some part of your business is based on hardware powered by an Intel chip or software designed for Intel architecture.
And for the past four years, the man who has directly shaped the strategies for everything Intel touches is president and CEO Craig Barrett.
Since Barrett was named Intel president in 1997, the company has experienced steady growth, with revenue up 35 percent by the end of 2000. But despite that growth, he has had his challenges, not the least of which was perception. When Barrett took over as CEO in 1998, most onlookers still saw Intel as Andy Grove's company. Barrett's low-key leadership in the years that followed did little to alter that perception.
That all changed last year as the company's successes gave way to difficulties. Intel fell victim to the financial hardships that affected so many high-tech companies in 2001, finishing the year with income of $3.6 billion on $26.5 billion in revenue, down from 2000's $10.5 billion income on revenue of $33.7 billion.
Barrett hasn't shied away from the challenges. Calling 2001 a terrible year for the industry, he implemented a plan to make 2001 an aberration, not the start of a slide. He made
tough decisions to drop product lines that were once championed under the Grove regime, including Intel-branded switches. The focus now, he says, is on becoming "the pre-eminent building-block supplier to the Internet." And while other manufacturers are slowing down investments, Barrett is increasing R and D to more than $4 billion.
Clearly, 2001 was the year Barrett carved his own initials into the world's largest manufacturer of silicon processors. Now he's looking to map out the company's future. That's why when VARBusiness got the opportunity to sit down with Barrett recently for a one-on-one interview, we decided to turn it into a forum for you, the readers of VARBusiness. We posed questions to Barrett that came directly from you to see what he thinks about the issues affecting your business.
Not surprisingly, most solution providers we spoke with said their main concern is figuring out the specific role their companies can play as part of Intel's evolving strategy. What's clear, they say, is that Intel is shifting from being simply a supplier of processors to something bigger. What's not so clear to them is exactly what that something bigger is. Some took Barrett to task for problems they have with Intel chip shortages and pricing, while others wanted the CEO to get down into the nitty-gritty world of clock-speeds and perceived competition from the likes of AMD.
Barrett didn't sidestep anything. While he might not have agreed with the premise of every question, he met each one head-on and, in doing so, revealed his competitive spirit, as well as his vision for Intel's future.