etition.

A New Direction

New CEO Paul Otellini appears to be steering Intel in a very different direction. Instead of remaining focused on PCs, he's pushing the company to play a key technological role in a half-dozen fields, including consumer electronics, wireless communications and health care. And rather than continuing to focus solely on microproce

I’ve always considered Intel to be one of the world’s best-managed technology brands. Last year, Interbrand ranked Intel as the fifth most valuable brand in the world. And it consistently stays in the top ten because management works hard to make sure the brand remains relevant in the fast-moving semiconductor market.

Of late, Intel has garnered a lot of press regarding the sweeping changes management intends to make in the company’s brand and product line. In many ways, these changes will send the world’s largest chipmaker into uncharted territory. Some analysts are saying that Intel’s new direction will necessitate creating a new brand. However, at its core, I believe Intel will very much remain the same company, mainly because the deeply established core values that drive the Intel brand are alive and well and working exactly as designed.

Under founder Andy Grove and successor CEO Craig Barrett, Intel thrived by concentrating on the microprocessors that power personal computers. They invested billions of dollars in plants that could crank out millions of processors, and in the process they helped give life to the age of the personal computer with ever-faster, more powerful chips. Occasionally, Grove and Barrett ventured into areas beyond microprocessors and personal computers. But from the outside, those tentative forays looked more like cautious experiments than full commitments to new markets. For the most part, Intel stuck to its very narrow focus, and in doing proceeded to bury the competition.

A New Direction

New CEO Paul Otellini appears to be steering Intel in a very different direction. Instead of remaining focused on PCs, he's pushing the company to play a key technological role in a half-dozen fields, including consumer electronics, wireless communications and health care. And rather than continuing to focus solely on microproces

sweeping changes management intends to make in the company’s brand and product line. In many ways, these changes will send the world’s largest chipmaker into uncharted territory. Some analysts are saying that Intel’s new direction will necessitate creating a new brand. However, at its core, I believe Intel will very much remain the same company, mainly because the deeply established core values that drive the Intel brand are alive and well and working exactly as designed.

Under founder Andy Grove and successor CEO Craig Barrett, Intel thrived by concentrating on the microprocessors that power personal computers. They invested billions of dollars in plants that could crank out millions of processors, and in the process they helped give life to the age of the personal computer with ever-faster, more powerful chips. Occasionally, Grove and Barrett ventured into areas beyond microprocessors and personal computers. But from the outside, those tentative forays looked more like cautious experiments than full commitments to new markets. For the most part, Intel stuck to its very narrow focus, and in doing proceeded to bury the competition.

A New Direction

New CEO Paul Otellini appears to be steering Intel in a very different direction. Instead of remaining focused on PCs, he's pushing the company to play a key technological role in a half-dozen fields, including consumer electronics, wireless communications and health care. And rather than continuing to focus solely on microproce

shed core values that drive the Intel brand are alive and well and working exactly as designed.

Under founder Andy Grove and successor CEO Craig Barrett, Intel thrived by concentrating on the microprocessors that power personal computers. They invested billions of dollars in plants that could crank out millions of processors, and in the process they helped give life to the age of the personal computer with ever-faster, more powerful chips. Occasionally, Grove and Barrett ventured into areas beyond microprocessors and personal computers. But from the outside, those tentative forays looked more like cautious experiments than full commitments to new markets. For the most part, Intel stuck to its very narrow focus, and in doing proceeded to bury the competition.

A New Direction

New CEO Paul Otellini appears to be steering Intel in a very different direction. Instead of remaining focused on PCs, he's pushing the company to play a key technological role in a half-dozen fields, including consumer electronics, wireless communications and health care. And rather than continuing to focus solely on microproce

e of the personal computer with ever-faster, more powerful chips. Occasionally, Grove and Barrett ventured into areas beyond microprocessors and personal computers. But from the outside, those tentative forays looked more like cautious experiments than full commitments to new markets. For the most part, Intel stuck to its very narrow focus, and in doing proceeded to bury the competition.

A New Direction

New CEO Paul Otellini appears to be steering Intel in a very different direction. Instead of remaining focused on PCs, he's pushing the company to play a key technological role in a half-dozen fields, including consumer electronics, wireless communications and health care. And rather than continuing to focus solely on microproce

etition.

A New Direction

New CEO Paul Otellini appears to be steering Intel in a very different direction. Instead of remaining focused on PCs, he's pushing the company to play a key technological role in a half-dozen fields, including consumer electronics, wireless communications and health care. And rather than continuing to focus solely on microprocessors, he wants Intel to create a variety of chips and software and then meld them together into what he calls "platforms."

With Grove and Barrett at the helm, Intel first provided customers with full sets of technology ingredients, such as microprocessors, chipsets, communications chips and base software capabilities. Under Otellini, Intel will develop complete technology platforms based on Intel ingredients, an evolution best evidenced with the introduction of Intel? Centrino™ mobile technology. Even the “Intel Inside” logo will disappear, to be replaced by an updated Intel logo with a swirl around it to signify movement. And for the first time since the early 1990s, the company will add a tagline: "Leap ahead."

At first glance, all of this looks like a sharp departure from the company Grove and Barrett built. However, upon closer examination, these moves turn out to be very “Grovesk” at their core.

In December 2005, Grove’s photo appeared on the cover of Fortune magazine, accompanying an article entitled “How to Become a Great Leader.” Fortune stated that Grove, 69, has never lost track of the truth -- that Intel has always been one wrong move away from disaster and that a closed mind is the trap door to the abyss. During his tenure as CEO, Grove made numerous “bet-the-farm moves” could have killed the company but ended up propelling it forward. For example, his decision to get out of the now commodity memory chip business and focus solely on microprocessors. Or the decision to stick w