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Intel gets quicker at bringing speed to India

That's fast. Intel has launched its Pentium II processor, almost at the same time as it was officially released in New York.

The Pentium II, essentially a modified Pentium Pro processor with MMX (multimedia extensions) incorporated, is faster - going at 233, 266 and 300 MHz - and kicks into high gear all software that has been designed for MMX and gives an encouraging shove to many that haven't.

Intel also plans to bring into India a faster system bus architecture that will work at 100 MHz instead of the current 66 MHz. It will be bringing over the next generation of dynamic RAM into India sometime next year.

In face of stiff competition from AMD and Cyrix that's getting stiffer by the day, Intel has kept prices down, despite fears that investors will begin downloading its stocks.

It has also reduced prices on older chips, from 20-30 per cent for the Pentiums to 2-3 per cent for its higher end hardware.

The Pentium II has more problems to contend with than competition. A flaw was found in the chip due to which the machine makes mistakes when doing some number-crunching. While Intel does not propose to handle it yet, software will have work around it, according to company sources.

But this could worry businessmen in India who will be coughing up Rs 100,000 or more for each of these machines.

Pentium II came very early to India. All its earlier chips took their time, with even the Pentium MMX being launched just last month.

Speaking at the India launch, Intel India Country Manager Atul Vijaykar expressed confidence though that companies would go for Intel with its faster and better processors.

He added that Pentium combined the functions of a complex workstation with that of a PC at a reasonable price.

Intel Asia Electronics Inc, also known as Intel India, is expected to soon set up a subsidiary unit in India that, in a few more years, is expected to host a design development wing.

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