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Intel Celebrates The Industry's 1 Billionth PC

July 1, 2002 - Intel Corp

When it comes to the PC, science fiction has become science fact. When introduced some 25 years ago, PCs were big and clunky, and performed simple word processing and basic spreadsheet functions. Today, the home PC is a powerful all-in-one digital jukebox, movie studio, photo darkroom and electronic game board. For companies worldwide, the PC has brought unprecedented productivity and efficiency to the way business is done. With a PC connected to the Internet, it's possible for even the smallest company to sell products and provide customer service around the clock and around the globe. In the past two decades, technology innovation and the expansion of the Internet have changed the future of computing - a billion times over.

1 Billion PCs and Counting

Industry analyst firm Gartner Dataquest announced today that the PC industry has shipped the 1 billionth PC. The industry reached this notable milestone in April 2002, roughly 25 years after the debut of the first commercially successful and widely available personal computer, the 1974 Altair powered by the Intel® 8080 chip.

Intel's contribution to the evolution of personal computing began with its 1971 invention of the microprocessor, often referred to as the brain of the PC. From the Intel 8080 chip used in the Altair to the 4.77 MHz Intel® 8088 processor that powered the watershed IBM PC in 1981, this historic path of innovation has brought us today to the era of the Intel® Pentium® 4 processor, the world's fastest processor. PCs based on the Pentium 4 processor at 2.53 GHz deliver higher performance for digital media and enriched multi-tasking user experiences.

Today, PCs are in roughly 60% of U.S. households, followed by 49% in Western Europe and 38% in Asia Pacific. At the end of last year, nearly half a billion people around the world had access to the Internet from their homes. In 2001, more than $615 billion in revenue was generated worldwide from e-Commerce transactions . In its journey to the 1 billion milestone, the PC has profoundly changed the way companies transact business and how people communicate, shop, learn, access information and entertain themselves.

The 1 billionth PC is likely enabling its owner to do a variety of things once thought of as science fiction. Today, people rely on PCs to send e-mail and instant messages, surf the Web, manage a household budget and family calendar, edit home movies and burn them onto DVDs, mix music, create photo albums with narration and mood music, play action-packed games, and engage in a host of other compelling new uses.

Another Billion PCs in Six Years

Gartner Dataquest calculates that the next billion PCs could ship far faster than the ones that came before. In 2008, the PC industry is projected to reach the milestone of 2 billion PCs, with the greatest growth opportunity coming from high-volume emerging markets in places such as China, Latin America and Eastern Europe. ...Intel profile

Editor's comments:- there's no doubt that the PC, which has brought affordable digital data access to everyone who needs it, has changed the way we work. And PC technology, in DVD players and music players have improved the sound and visual quality of our home entertainment.

But let's not forget the downside...

The hype which led to the dotcom bubble and crash created history's first digitally mastered economic recession.

That the PC is now part of everyday life for most of us is undeniable. It's also inevitable that the amount of storage associated with the 2nd billion PCs will be considerably greater than the first billion. But as processors have become commodities, which any small group of electronic engineers can design to put in a phone or a TV, Intel's continuing dominance in the processor market is less than certain.