Intel's Otellini Says Market Getting Stronger

When we last heard from Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini was describing a microprocessor market that had "bottomed out" in the first quarter of 2009 and that "the worst is behind us." That was then and this is now -- Otellini said Tuesday that demand for Intel's chips is rebounding from the first-quarter trough even faster than the company anticipated.

"We're about halfway through the second quarter now and what we've seen is a little better than we expected. The caveat is that the second quarter is always incredibly dependent on the month of June. But so far, so good," Otellini said in his opening remarks Tuesday to kick off Intel's two-day Investor Meeting in Santa Clara, Calif.

One subject that Otellini and other Intel executives did not touch on was the possibility of a major penalty from the European Commission for Intel's alleged antitrust activities in Europe. The EC is reportedly planning to issue a ruling on its years-long investigation into Intel as early as Wednesday morning.

Otellini and other executives spent a good deal of time framing Intel's current business prospects in the context of the global economic downturn. Otellini described a sharp and rapid plunge in demand for computer components beginning in the fourth quarter of 2008, but he expressed strong confidence that early returns for the second quarter indicated that the microprocessor market would return to prerecession levels for the rest of this year.

"For the year, I am now more firm in my belief that we will see seasonality in the second half," he said, referring to a return to steadier demand cycles for the rest of 2009.

Otellini also sounded more upbeat about enterprise spending than he had in last month's earnings call, when he predicted that enterprise customers would continue "keeping their wallets shut for a while."

"Even though corporations are not buying PCs right now, enterprises are buying servers, even in the depths of this recession," he said.