Intel reorganises units

Intel has announced a broad reorganisation into five new units bringing all major product groups together to drive technology platform development.

Five new business units, expected to report directly to Intel president Paul Otellini and chief executive Craig Barrett, are mobility, digital enterprise, digital home, digital health and channel, the company said in a statement.

Bill Siu would lead a new Channel Products Group, which would seek to expand on Intel's success in global markets by combining existing Intel product groups in local markets worldwide into one organisation, Intel said.

Mobility Group would be led by Sean Maloney and Dadi Perlmutter in developing platforms for notebook PCs and handheld computing and communications devices. The group would aim at making different mobile devices work together better, Intel said.

Digital Enterprise Group would be presided over by Pat Gelsinger and Abhi Talwalkar. The group would develop computing and communications infrastructure platforms for end-to-end solutions in businesses, the company said.

Don MacDonald would lead the Digital Home Group, which would focus on developing 'digital home' computing and communications platforms for consumers, with emphasis on living room entertainment applications and consumer electronics devices.

Louis Burns would lead the Digital Health Group in developing products and exploring opportunities for Intel architecture products in personal healthcare, healthcare research, diagnostics and productivity.

Jason Chen, vice-president and director of Intel's Sales and Marketing Group, plans to leave Intel at the end of January due to family health problems.

Intel said the announcement built on the Centrino bundle strategy, which marketed products as a "full set" of technology ingredients. Intel planned to broaden that approach into other areas, including in what it called the digital enterprise and the digital home.

Otellini said Intel wanted to sharpen its focus on developing platforms that better anticipated market needs.

"Each operating unit has the autonomy to allocate computing and communications resources to be successful, making Intel's entire structure consistent with our platform products strategy," he said.

Reporting structures and assignments in other Intel organisations, such as the company's Technology and Manufacturing Group, remain unchanged.