Jones Checks In

At first glance the silver haired gent seems to hide a lot of method behind

his warm smile. His people management skills are all too evident as he fields

questions deftly. So what's missing? Information, for one. As the new man

settled into his Indian boots, Intel India for all of the two hours retreated

into the recesses of a "quiet period".

Franklin B Jones walks into the room with the air of a man who will have much

to talk about a few months from now. Moving in from Santa Clara headquarters to

head Intel India's operations, Jones's synergy with outgoing Intel India

head Ketan Sampat is fairly evident. The wry sense of humor, subtle confidence,

engaging aura and clarity of direction is characteristic of the man, who will be

the first American employee of the company to lead Intel India's operations.

Intel, which set up its chip designing and software development centre in

Bangalore in 1999, has been headed by Indian expats throughout, Atul Vijaykar,

Avtar Saini, and Ketan Sampat. "We will build on our people strength and

continue investing into expanding our operations," Jones said, without

elaborating much.

Ketan Sampat, on his part, was predictably tight-lipped over reports of

dismissals of over 250 Intel employees on fraudulent conveyance claims.

"These are internal issues between the individuals and the company. It

would be inappropriate to comment on media reports," Sampat said. He was

equally circumspect on Intel's progress. "You could always check out the

IDC and MAIT figures and come to your own conclusions," he told reporters

at a formal gathering to introduce Jones.

For a man inspired by the R&D vision of his predecessor and his progress

in guiding e-governance projects at the central and state levels and driving

technology pilot programs in the rural areas, Jones declined further comment on

product-specific queries on India. "You know the facts," Sampat

helpfully interjected. Jones will be responsible for managing Intel's

relationship with the central and state governments, their entities, site

management, education initiatives and university engagements in India.

The Vista Angle



Sampat did not elaborate on development work at Intel on device driver software
for Microsoft's 64-bit Vista operating system. Isn't the new OS too hardware

dependent and configuration intensive for existing 32-bit systems? "Well,

Intel is developing the device driver range for Vista. Some of Intel's

graphics and media driver development is being done out of Bangalore," he

said. He also did not comment on whether Bangalore was specifically involved in

driver development for Vista. Device driver development alone out of Bangalore

currently engages the attention of about 500 Intel engineers.

The company curently employs about 2,500 engineers and Intel expects employee

strength to cross the 3,000 mark by end-2005. Headcount plans are currently on

target, and a moderate attrition rate down the year has not affected this,

Sampat said.

As Sampat packs his bags to move back to the US to focus on technology

innovation and emerging markets, Intel watchers have their next goal cut out-keeping

up with Mr Jones, his priorities, his expansion plans. For now, what we do know

is: a chip off the old Intel block has checked in with some clear designs on the

future.

Ravi Menon