'Intel would depend even more heavily on Bangalore'

Intel is awaiting the government's final word on spectrum allocation to speed up the start of WiMAX, reports Prerna K Mishra.

A question mark over Intel Corporation's intentions in Bangalore arose when the IT giant closed down a few of its projects in the city earlier this year. But Chairman Craig Barrett, currently visiting India, insisted Intel would depend even more heavily in future on Bangalore than before.

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"We start many projects at a time," said Barrett, who is on his eighth visit. "Some of them get commercialised, others don't. The minor cut backs do not undermine the role that the Bangalore centre has to play in our global development strategy."

But serious manufacturing in India will have to wait till the government rolls out the incentive package. The IT majors are expecting them to through the semiconductor policy. Intel is awaiting the government's final word on spectrum allocation to speed up the start of WiMAX.

Intel's revenues dipped slightly last year, but it is betting on disruptive technologies to gain market share. "Last year, we were struggling to revamp the product line and transact to the dual core architecture, said Barrett. "So we did lose some market share to AMD. But, we have bounced back in the last quarter."

Extending the Intel World Ahead Program to the next level in India, the company will take the number of teachers trained on the application of technology to improve classroom learning from existing 600,000 to one million by 2008. It will also donate 10,000 computers to state governments and teacher training institutes.

Email: pmishra@hindustantimes.com