Intel jamboree develops new lease of life

A STRAW POLL of the hacks visiting IDF revealed that after Day One there was little to write home about - the content was thin, although if you wanted to know everything you never needed to know about WiMAX, then your appetite would be sated.

For example, on day two, there was an hour long session on Mobility with three interesting people ready and willing to take answers from the assembled hacks.

The best attempts by the three Intel folk to keep their presentations short and pithy were, however, thwarted by a "moderator" - an analyst from In Stat, whose initial presentation was not only longer than the three presenters' snapshots put together, but who then insisted on asking the questions himself.

We made our excuses and left.

A discussion on the bus back to the airport by a rag-tag collection of various hacks turned to Justin Rattner's presentation on the Thursday - Second Life is the way forward apparently. Does that mean that instead of physically flying to San Francisco for IDF, we will all don our multicoloured furry outfits and head on out to an Intel island to be regaled by Intel executives in the future?

Being physically present at IDF has its upside, which is why it's so valuable. You get to speak with executives in the lobbies, at the bars, or sit around trying to be inconspicuous and simply listen in to what's going down, making sure you first break the RFID chip in your nametag so Intel and its spinners are never absolutely sure where you are.

The one-to-one is invaluable although the one-to-ones with Intel executives that don't have two, three or more PRs in attendance are worth their weight in gold. Hint: Don't drink at a bar where you can be spotted.

At each and every tech session at IDF, delegates were told the slides will be on the web. Many of these slides are available on the IDF website - but there are some unaccountable omissions such as the ones about non-volatile memory which we can't find, despite hunting high or low.

It would be unfair to accuse Intel of offering little content - the first day was content full, and Paul Otellini's keynote was jam packed full with goodies. PSO's presentation perhaps left little for the other speakers to say - we don't know how much this is down to the fact that PSO is the president and CEO.

Kicking Pat was also very good value throughout, as was Mooly Eden, the Israeli mobility man who laces his discussions on Montevina with personal anecdotes that make anything he says feel you are sitting on the edge of a volcano crater that's very far from extinct.

Intel had a lot to say and much of it was illuminating. And even though many of us felt that AMD has scored an own goal in the last year and missed its Widow (sic) of Opportunity, Intel at least did not stand like a rooster on its dunghill and proclaim its the cock of the north. It learnt its lesson two years ago that an arrogant dragon will have cause to repent while AMD failed to capitalise on its then lead.

There was a heap of good info and we all figured that it certainly was very much more interesting than sitting through days of Salesforce talking about CRM, or "the update on the Hershey implementation of SAP APO Demand Processing" that must surely have had the delegates to America's SAP Users' Group thrumming with anticipation.

Kicking Pat Gelsinger must surely be very proud that IDF is in its tenth year - he remains as ebullient and upbeat as usual and the geekfest continues to be a must for all geeks, neo-geeks and "fellow travellers". µ