Intel cancels IDF Taipei, Beijing

SOURCES IN OLD TAIPEI tell us that Intel has now cancelled its Developer Forum there, scheduled to start on the 14th of April.

It has also cancelled its Beijing forum, which followed a few days later.

Attendees have received this notice from Intel:

"This decision has been made in response to the increasing concerns from developers and media attendees due to health alerts and travel advisories issued by various governments in reaction to the SARS virus. This is as disappointing to us as we're sure it is to you. With great technical content developed, exhibitor space sold out in both Taipei and Beijing and thousands of attendees registered, we were looking forward to another series of significant events in these and all IDF locations around the world."

Instead, Intel will satisfy pent up demand in the Far East for its products by issuing press releases and holding smaller meetings.

It has pledged to hold IDF in Bangalore, Berlin and Tokyo this month, however.

The US government is telling people to avoid travel to South East Asia.

This virus has a four per cent mortality rate, way below the one third fatality rate of the influenza pandemic which followed the First World War, in 1919.

We expect Intel, however, to still launch its "Canterwood" chipset on the 14th of April.

No one from Intel was available to confirm or deny the report at press time.

Even though the WHO and the US.gov have issued so-called advisories for people not to travel to Asia, our own government is too preoccupied with the budget to warn us Brits against travelling there.

So we expect to see our old friends, as usual, in Old Taipei, in June.

Intel personnel must have had a fit of the heebie jeebies after a plane from Tokyo touched down in San Jose airport and was quarantined for two hours, for fear that people on the aeroplane might have exhibited symptoms of the disease.