New York - PC Expo: Intel says expect faster Celeron

Paul Otellini, executive vice president of Intel, took attendees at PC Expo through a tour of the company's processor line this week, in a keynote speech that focused more on how technology is being used than on where it is going.

But while Otellini mostly focused on existing offerings from Intel, he did shed some light on new technology coming in the next few months.

In an interview after the keynote, Otellini said consumers can expect to see faster versions of Intel's low-end Celeron processor by Christmas. The newer version will feature a level 2 cache and in the next few months, Intel will launch processors running at 450MHz, he said. In the past, faster speeds have been needed to run bigger and faster applications - or killer apps. The next killer app, Otellini said, is really the environment we work in.

"It's being always connected. This concept of access to everything, in real time, is what we at Intel call constant computing," he said. That includes application and processes that run in the background, such as virus checking and encryption, as well as the constant connection implied by increasing Internet usage. "The Internet is becoming to users like a utility," he said. "It's always there and it's always on."

Otellini said that 60 percent of Web servers today are based on Intel architecture, and the company hopes to increase that number.

That domination of the chip market has thrust Intel into battle with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), although that was something Otellini did not discuss in his keynote. But he did speak about the company's FTC battle after the speech, and said that Intel continues to believe that the contested actions did not violate any law.

The commission has accused Intel of abusing its monopoly power by denying information about confidential processes to its competitors, including Intergraph, Digital and Compaq. Intel said that since it was involved in litigation with those companies, it had every right to demand the return of business secrets.