Intel's Barrett has a cow, man

CRAIG BARRETT WOULD very much like to raise cows on his ranch in Montana, the Intel Chairman revealed today when the INQ asked him about his retirement plans.

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Barrett, who has spent 35 years working his way up through the Intel hierarchy, from Engineer to CEO to chairman, says he does still plan on staying active in the areas of education and healthcare, but more than anything just wants to play cowboy on his ranch whilst horsing around with his steed, aptly named Pentium.

Brokeback mountaineering aside, Barrett said he felt particularly drawn to the education and healthcare sectors because they were both, "least touched by technology and which technology can most influence".

Proving his claim he's just a guy with a ranch full of cows, rather than the chairman of all-powerful Chipzilla, Barrett said he didn't want to talk about "state of the art" technology, but instead chose to stick to the technology "people would not usually think about" and the "relatively simple application technology which impacts people's lives".

The soon-to-be-retired Barrett emphasised the importance of education in the developing world, noting it was no good simply throwing hardware and software at teachers willy nilly without teaching them how to use it beneficially. "You get a multiplicative effect by educating teachers," Barret said, adding this was especially important in the developing world where 85 per cent of the world's youth was educated. Intel was committed to its pledge of providing 100,000 free Classmate PCs and teacher training, he said, adding that he knew it wasn't enough, but was a good start.

Yee-haw! µ