Two Thirds Done

Thoughts and experiences of an eighty one year old Wild Duck.

Avram Miller by the sea
EN | IT

587 posts since 2006

Category: Intel

  • Andy Grove Demonstrates early Cable Modem as well as ProShare -PC Expo 94

    In conducting extensive research for my book, The Flight of a Wild Duck, I recently came across a video of Andy Grove doing the Keynote at PC Expose in 1994.  The title of the his speech was “The Ubiquitous PC.”  This was at a time that most thought that it would be the TV and not the PC that would be the interactive device in the home.  Later we began to use the term “The PC is It.”.  By 1993, I had be come convinced that it would be the PC and not the TV and had already embarked on what became an extremely successful initiative to use both cable and telephone infrastructure to create residential broadband.  I devote a large section of my book to this undertaking.  

    Andy speaks about cable modems as well as ProShare

    While Andy became a believer in the combination of powerful home computers coupled with high speed communications to create a new medium.  Getting him there was not easy. Even in 1994, when he gave this speech, he did not really believe that cable companies were capable of developing residential broadband.  He literally would laugh at me but to his credit, he did not stop me and even supported my efforts publicly on occasion  

    On the other hand, Andy believe that it would be the telephone companies that would provide connectivity to the home.  He was a big believer in ISDN which was offered by many phone companies around the world to provide digital services. It could provide 64 k-bits or in some cases 125 k-bits. But it was expensive and hard to deploy.  Later, the phone companies would develop DSL initially in a failed attempt to provide television services to consumer.  I got the Intel Architecture label to modify this technology and create a standard that let the phone companies eventually offer broadband services to consumer.  

    In this video, you can hear Andy really promote IDSN and in conjunction with one of Intel’s greatest failures, ProShare. ProShare provided one to one video conferencing for about $25,000. Interestingly. ProShare was led by Pat Gelsinger, the recently elected CEO of Intel. Originally, I wrote a chapter on ProShare for my book but ultimately cut it out as it was not that relevant to the main flow of the book. I will be posting that section on the web site that I have created for my book as part of a series of essays that did not make it in the actual publication (www.wildducklfight.com) If you go there you can sign up to get notification about essays as they are published. Pat was a very bright and talented man but he had no previous business experience. Andy tapped Pat for this job because he was convinced that Pat was great at execution. ProShare was one of the few times that Andy himself pushed a new business idea. But a bad idea done right is still a bad idea. I tried to pursued Andy and Pat not to count on ISDN but they ignored me. But even if ISDN would have not had issue, ProShare would have failed. Andy eventually realized this himself when he stopped using it.

    When Andy decided to demonstrate a cable modem at PC Expo, I was so thankful.  Still, I got very tenuous support.  Andy just could not relate to the cowboy mentality of the cable industry. He was much more comfortable with phone companies who had processes (and did they ever).  On the other hand, Bill Gates was more comfortable with cable companies. For instance, Microsoft invested $1 billion in Comcast in 1997, more than $200 million in Time Warner’s Roadrunner cable modem service. However, Gates was a strange believer in interactive Television and wasted a lot of money developing products for that purpose.  

  • Goodbye and thanks Doug Semon

    When I decided to write a book about my high tech journey, I had several objectives. One of those was to document the creation of residential broadband in which I played a leadership role. I wanted to tell my personal story, but I also wanted to make sure that the people who contributed to its creation got the credit. At this point in my life, I often say that my contribution to the future of technology is to document its pass because that is how I feel. As I began working on my book almost three years ago, I was glad that most of the people I worked with were alive and still accessible to me.

    Sadly, today, I learned that Doug Semon, one of the pioneers in developing residential broadband over cable died. It was a privilege to know and work with Doug in 1993 and 1994. Doug was one of the first people to understand the potential of combining high-speed connectivity to powerful personal computers in homes.

    Doug Semon was director of Viacom’s cable operation before they sold it to TCI. It was a time when Time Warner was pushing a concept called the Full-Service Network, which had the Television at the heart of home interactivity. I discuss all this a length in my book, which I hope to have published early next year. Billions would be wasted by cable, telephone, and computer companies on what was a bad idea.

    In the process of exploring doing a small scale version of the Full-Service Network, Semon had put out a Request for Proposal for the various piece of technology needed. One proposal, from a company called Hybrid Networks, did not make sense. It did not deal with interactive Television. It was about a modem that could use the cable network to transfer information at very high speeds to a computer located in a home and use the telephone system to send data back. That is why they had “Hybrid’ in their name. At that time, most cable systems either did not have an upstream capability or if they did, it was of minimal bandwidth and poor quality.

    Doug was a bit geeky, including putting together his computer out of parts. A light must have gone off in his head when he realized the potential of the cable industry offering broadband. He meets with the founder of Hybrid, where they demonstrated a cable-based connection to one of the few web servers in the world. It had a graphically oriented website that would have taken a very long time to display using conventional telephone modems. Doug sought support from his management to do a trial.

    Around this time, I was introduced to Hybrid. I had already decided to have Intel, together with General Instruments, the largest provider of equipment to the cable industry, develop a cable modem. We invested in Hybrid. They told us about their discussions with Semon. We saw this as an excellent opportunity to do a trial. It took a while to get Viacom’s management to agree. This even involved discussions with the CEO of Viacom, Frank Biondi.

    However, I wanted to have a modem that works bi-directionally on cable and did not require a telephone line. I was convinced that the key to success would have an always-on, always-connected, high-speed communications capability. We had set up a cable modem development group at Intel, Arizona. We had some of those engineers modify the Hybrid product so it could use the upstream capability of the cable plants. Fortunately, the Viacom test used had this capability.

    The trial took place in Castro Valley, a community in the San Francisco East Bay. The first modem got installed in Oct. 1994, but no one was charged until December of 1994. here were 50 homes initially, but it grew to 256 by one 1995. The downstream rate was 10 Mbps, and the upstream rate was 128 kbps. It was at a time when the state of the art telephone modems were 28.8 kbps.

    Viacom and Intel conducted focus groups. The users’ reaction was extremely positive and was very important in gaining support both within Intel and Gi but, importantly, the other cable companies.

    During the same period, Intel/GI/Hybrid did a trial with Comcast in Marion, PA. It was also very successful. Doug and his counterpart at Comcast, Steve Craddock, would argue with each other about who was first. In my mind, they were both first.

    Both the Viacom trial and the Comcast trial were announced in December of 1994.

    Doug Semon went on to have a successful career in the cable industry and played an important and continued role in making cable modems a success. He will be missed by many.

  • The relevance of Corp Venture Capital

    I am Still Alive

    Several months ago, I was contacted by a contributor to Forbes, com, Gil Press. He was going to spend some time in Israel, where I live (mostly) and wanted to interview me about Corporate Venture Capital. Frankly, I was surprised that at this point in my life, anyone was interested in interviewing me about anything, so I agreed. Also, I am writing a book about my time in technology. So I thought it might be helpful to me in clarifying some of my own thinking. We spoke for about 90 minutes. I found it enjoyable and indeed, useful. You can read the article here.

    I think the article is pretty well written and researched. However, it wandered away from the topic a bit. It turned out to be more about me than about Corporate Venture Capital, though. I have mixed feelings about that. In one hand, I am happy that our discussions took Gil there because it makes me feel that people may be interested in my book. But I am uncomfortable when so much of the accomplishments of Intel Capital in the early years focus on me personally. It was a team effort. While I played a significant role, we certainly could not have achieved such success if it was not for Les Vadasz, who was my boss and partner as well as so many others that played significant roles. All that will be clarified in my book, I hope.

    The Dangers of having a personality

    I recall when USA Today published in 1996, a 1 1/2 page profile on me with the heading “For Intel, he is a One Man Think Tank.” There was a lot of anger amongst the management of Intel about that, and I could appreciate that. I often joke that I was one of the few Intel executives with a “personality.” I would also joke that I had more hair then all the other executives combined, some of whom took exception to that. What I meant by saying that I had “personality” was that I was one of the few that was an extrovert, comfortable with public speaking and interacting with the press. I could be funny and had great sound bites so I was often quoted. It worked out pretty well for me.

    Fred Wilson is Wrong

    I don’t really know Fred Wilson. He seems like a smart person and a very successful venture capitalist. Fred is quoted in the article as thinking that “Corporate Venture Capital is dumb.” He believes that corporations do not benefit from being minority investors. He says that if you want an asset, “just buy it.” Fred has been a VC most if not all, of his professional life. I am not sure he understands how large cooperation actually work. In any case, I disagree with him.

    Importance of Corporate Venture Capital

    There are two primary reasons for a Corporation to have an early stage investment group. The first and what I believe the most critical reason is strategic. Investing in early-stage companies and even interacting with venture capitalist provides a window into future markets and technologies. The second is financial. Corporations have certain advantages that Venture Capital Funds do not have, although they also have disadvantages. I believe done right, the early stage investing can not only pay for itself but also subsidize other activities also focus on the future such as an advanced development group which I also believe is needed by corporations. Investing in early-stage companies by a corporation can give them a window on acquisitions. Cisco has been a great example of that.

    Intel’s Objectives in doing Venture Investments

    At Intel we had established three objectives for our early stage investing; 1) grow the current Intel business 2) provide strategic insight that would positively influence the development of Intel’s strategy and 3) get a significant return on our investments. We succeeded in the first and last objectives and failed on the 2nd, which, sadly, was the most important, in my opinion. The financial returns were critical because it meant that we did not compete with other intel organizations for funds. We generated our own investment capital very early in the development of Intel Capital. The financial returns were also an indication that the business we invested into were successful, which was an indicator of their contribution to our first objective of growing the existing market. Unfortunately, we had no impact on the long term strategy of Intel. I still feel bad about this and often think what I could have done differently.

    Intel capital was well integrated into Intel as a whole. The senior people like Les Vadasz and I were compensated primarily on the success of Intel as a whole and not on the performance of Intel Capital. I am aware that many corporations set up their venture groups like a captive venture fund. I think this is a mistake because it separates the members of the venture group from the corporation they serve. Such groups will become primarily financially focused. In this case, I would agree with Fred Wilson. One problem that comes from not running the Corporate Venture Group like a normal VC is compensation. The people in the organization can make far more money assuming they are talented if they leave and join a VC firm. This created a certain amount of undesirable turn-over. But fortunately, we we had no problems recruiting people to join Intel Capital.

    I can’t really comment on the existing corporate venture groups including Intel. I just don’t have enough information.

  • Intel’s Board Fails at its most important task

    I have personally served on dozen of boards. Five of these companies were public, Maxis, King World, CMGI, PCCW, and World Online. I have not served on a public company board since 2002. The majority of the boards were private companies. I resigned my last board position at the end of 2018. I don’t plan to join any more boards.

    I also served on several nonprofit boards such as Plugged In, Equal Access and CalArts. I like to say that the difference between serving on a for-profit board and a nonprofit board is that the for-profit company pays you a lot of money to ignore your advice and you pay the nonprofit a lot of money to disregard your advice.

    Serving on a board can be very frustrating.  The board is supposed to represent the shareholders and make sure they are treated fairly by the company.  Its main task, in my opinion, is to make sure the company has the right CEO.  In this regard, I believe that the Intel board has been a failure, but it is not that unusual that a board fails in its primary task. 

    Intel’s first board was established in 1971. It had six members at that time. Bob Noyce was the CEO at the age of 44 years old. Gordon Moore was 42 years old. Intel was the third company that Bob and Gordon started. Art Rock was the board chair and the key investor in the company. He was just 44 years old. It is thought that Art was the person that came up with the term Venture Capital. He also funded Apple.

    It is hard to imagine how young everyone was. Max Palesvsky was 47. He invested in Scientific Data Systems with Art Rock had also financed. He sold that company to Xerox in 1969 and became very wealthy. Jim Guzy who was just 33 years old in 1971. Jim started his career in the disk industry working at Memorex. He was a serial entrepreneur and angel investor. He actually turned out to be the longest serving board member and left at the age of 70 in 2008. I knew all of them but not until I joined Intel in 1984. I don’t think I interacted with the Intel board until 1988. When Andy was CEO. Andy was only 33 years old when Intel was formed as was Les Vadasz. There was also a board member named Charles Smith who was 61 years old and represented an investment by the Rockefeller family. The average age was a director was 45.2 years old. I really liked Max and would visit him sometimes at his Los Angeles home. He had a fantastic collection of art.

    Three years later, in 1974, the board doubled to ten members.  This included two additional insiders, Andy Grove, and Ed Gelbach.   The average age of the board was now 46.2 years.

    Most of the board stayed on so by 1988, the average age was over 60 years old.  It pretty much stayed that way from that time on. The number of inside board members dropped until it was under 25%. Interestingly, many of the early board members were Jewish. This included Art Rock, Andy Grove, Sandy Kaplan, and Max Palesvky.  At one time 40% of the board was Jewish. That was the case when I joined Intel in 1984.  Now, there is not a single Jew on the board.  By the way, there are only two women out of the ten board members. Most of the board consists of white males.  I would be generous if I said that two or three of the board members had any real technology experience.

    So Noyce was 42 when he became CEO and 47 when Moore took that Job at the age of 46. Moore was 57 when Grove took over at the age of 51. Grove was 61 when Barrett took over, and he turned 65 when Otellini became CEO at 55 years. Barrett resigned at the age of 62 and was followed by Krzanich at the age 53. Kranich was pushed out at the age of 57 and followed by the current CEO Swan who was 58.

     The average years on the board went up to more than 16 years and had pretty much stayed there until recently when there has been a drop.   It seems like the average age of S&P board members is also around 60.  Here is an excellent link to the average age of board members.  https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2017/04/06/age-diversity-within-boards-of-directors-of-the-sp-500-companies/

    But the nature of the board has changed a great deal. In the beginning, it was comprised of the two founders and the initial investors. The board was young. Over time, new board members had less knowledge of technology and the technology markets. Many of them had never worked in a small company. There were a few like David Yoffie, a Harvard Professor of Business, who were strategic.

    As boards begin to age, they get kind of cozy.  Board members often help out other board members.  There are rarely conflicts on boards.  The compensation can also play a significant role.  Board members can make a lot of money by being board members.  A substantial part of my net worth came from my own role as a board member. Sometimes board members sit on several boards together. 

    For a long time, Intel Executives did not serve on the boards of other companies but that slowly changed.  When Paul Otellini was the CEO of Intel not only did he sit on the Intel board but he was also on the Google board.  While Paul made a lot of money from his position as CEO of Intel, he may have made significantly more from serving on the Google board.  

    The most critical role that a board has is to make sure that the company has the right CEO. This is where boards fail so often. It is difficult to remove a CEO unless there is some obvious and compelling reason. Usually, the CEO was very involved in bringing the board member onto the board.

    In this regard, the Intel board has failed at its primary responsibility.  Since Andy Grove, resigned as CEO, each CEO has been pretty much a failure in my opinion.  Barrett was an operation guy that did not have a strategic bone in his body.  Otellini was a finance guy turned sales guy who also did not have any strategic abilities.  Brian Kzanich was the first really political CEO.  He did a terrible job especially concerning staying competitive in manufacturing, and he came from Manufacturing.  He was fired for having a relationship with an employee, but that was just a cover for being fired for incompetence.   There is a new guy, Bob Swan who was a CFO his whole career.  Appointing a finance guy as CEO is a typical move by a board that has no understanding of the company but does understand finance. 

    There have been 40 different members of the Intel board including the current ten.

  • Rereading Only the Paranoid Survive

    Only the paranoid survive

    At the suggestion of my friend, David Yoffie, I reread Andy Grove’s book, Only the Paranoid Survive, written in 1996 and I am glad I did. David, who is a professor at Harvard’s business school, served on the Intel Board of directors for almost 29 years leaving in May of 2018. David visits Israel several times a year, and we often have a meal together. Last week we went for a long walk and a great lunch. I took the opportunity to discuss the development of my book with him as he has written several successful books himself. He and I often talk about Intel as you might expect and we especially discuss Andy Grove who had a profound effect on both of our careers.

    I have a bit of “history” with Only the Paranoid Survive. Harriet Rubin, the head of the Currency Imprint at the publisher, Doubleday and I were in a long term relationship when Harriet approached Andy with the idea of writing a business book. As Andy says in the preface of the book, “I had no intention of writing a book on this subject until Harriet Rubin, from Double day, sought me out and convinced me that I should do so.” Around this time, Harriet would join me for the Sun Valley Allen & Co conference. Andy attended as well so I would guess that this helped Harriet, who published some of the most impactful business books of the 90s, develop her pitch to Andy. I did not discuss the book much with Harriet during the time Andy was writing it. I felt a bit awkward about the situation although Andy did not seem to mind. One of the people that had been working on my team, Rob Siegel, spent about six months, I think, helping Andy with research on the book.

    After the book was published, Andy gave me a copy of the book on which he wrote, “I have dedicated chapter 7 to you”. The title of Chapter is “Let Chaos Reign.” It says a bit about how Andy viewed me.

    In re-reading the book, I was struck with the strategic insight that Andy showed. It is even more impactful when you think of his journey as a Jew from Nazi dominated, and then Russian dominated Hungry, to the USA and later from chemical engineer to the CEO of one of the most successful companies in the world, Intel.

    This book is full of insight and wisdom. I plan to build upon many of the things that Andy describes. Rereading the book also made me wish that I was able to have a better relationship with Andy. I could have learned more from him and frankly, he could have learned more from me. I have grown to think that Andy had more respect for my abilities and thinking that I believed at that time. Someone very close to Andy recently told me “He loved you. Said you always needed a wild duck like Avram. A nonlinear thinker that stirred up the others. He felt your presence was quite critical and when you left there really was never anyone like you. I always try to have an “Avram” on my team. Always. They disrupt and create. Don’t confuse that he didn’t always listen with how he felt”.

    I invite you to read Only the Paranoid Survive.

  • My book in the making

    Below is a description of sorts about I book I am working on. It is actually a great deal of work as I have to conduct a lot of research and assure its accuracy.  Now, I need some feedback. I am concerned that the companies, people and events may not be relevant to today’s readers. Any suggestions about how to make the book more appealing to readers that are under 40 would be appreciated.
    This book is primarily about my experiences in the computer industry from 1979-2004. This includes my time at Digital Equipment Corporation (1979-1983), Franklin Computer (1983-1984), Intel Corp (1984-1999) and as an investor, board member and advisor (1999-2004).

    While the book will have some autobiographical elements including how someone who never attended university and barely graduated from High School ended up as an Associate Professor at the age of 29 and then went on to be a corporative office at Intel at a time when it was one of the most successful companies in the world.

    My book will be a combination of history, antidotes, and stories but importantly, it will also contain lessons that I believe can be helpful to those creating and/or investing in high tech businesses. I have been fortunate to have known many of the leaders of the computer industry during my times, this includes Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Ken Olson and of course Andy Grove and “being in the room” when important decisions were made.

    The book will explore topics like the transition from the Mini Computer/Vertical industry to the PC/horizontal industry. It will tell stories like how Intel tried to kill the microprocessor that eventually became the fuel for its success. It will cover Microsoft’s achievements and its many failures as well as covering the relationship between Intel and Microsoft which I witness closely.

    Since I played a principal part in the development of high-speed residential broadband, a significant portion of the book will deal with this in depth.  I think it is a really interesting story and much of it has not yet been told.
    As one of the founders of Intel Capital, I will discuss its history and accomplishments and discuss the role of corporate venture investing.

    The book will touch on my failures which were many as well as my successes. This will help guide some of the discussions on lessons. In doing research for the book, I have learned that I did a lot more and accomplished a lot less than I thought. It has been a humbling experience. I have also learned about the failures of others and how elusive and random success really can be. I have come to believe that not only does luck play an important role but it may be the most substantial factor in determining success.

    The book in a sense will be a collection of stories and wisdom told entertainingly that should give insight and perspective not only on the past what also on the future of the computer industry.

    Please send your comments to avram@avrammiller.com

    Thanks.

  • Drinking the kool-Aid (how billions were lost creating PDAs)

    As I try to decide if I should write a book, I have been reading or rereading various books about the computer industry.  I just finished Jerry Kaplan’s Startup, written in 1995. Jerry founded GO Corporation in 1987 to develop pen-based computers, and I still think the book has value today for those starting technology-based companies.  It would be hard for me to review this book objectively since I was involved with so many people, situations, and companies it discusses.  The book is richly detailed since Jerry kept many notes and recordings during the more than six years of GO’s existence (1987 to 1994). I wish that I had documented my experiences during my career. It would make writing my book much easier and more accurate!

    Reading Jerry’s book brought back many memories of this period for me. Although I don’t think I believed much in those early Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), I did interact with many of the companies involved, especially GO and General Magic.

    Personal Digital Assistants (PDA)

    Many companies were formed in the late 1980s and early 1990s around the concept of the PDA, a logical extension of computing’s evolution. First came mainframes, which were not only used by many people at once but were also required a staff to maintain and operate them.  Next came minicomputers, often used only by one person at a time and which did not require staff to keep them operational.  Both mainframes and minicomputers required a fixed location, though sometimes users could be located remotely (time sharing) using a terminal.  With the personal computer, individuals could, for the first time, own and control their own computers.  However, until the development of portable or notebook computers, these, too, had fixed locations: so we went from having computers on floors to computers on desktops.

    Even back in the 1970s, then, many dreamed of having a computer that could fit inside a briefcase or, even better, inside a pocket or purse. Today, with smartphones (like the iPhone), we take this entirely for granted.

    PDAs required small size, ease of interactivity, and the ability to connect to more traditional, more powerful computer systems.  In a sense, then, these devices were akin to intelligent terminals.  Because size was such a significant consideration, a traditional, typewriter-style keyboard would not fit.  Therefore, it was believed that users would need to interact with such devices using a pen, a stylus, or their fingers.  Several companies developed user interfaces that combined handwriting, drawing, and gestures, including GO, Apple (with the Newton), and Microsoft (with WinPad), to name a few of the more prominent examples. General Magic, wisely realizing that accurate handwriting recognition would not be possible with the available technology, provided a screen keyboard that could be tapped with a stylus. There were also many attempts to add handwriting capabilities to traditional desktop computers.

    With the possible exception of Palm, which was formed in 1996, all the companies formed between 1987 and 1997 to exploit this perceived opportunity failed—after raising staggering amounts of money.  The people involved spent years of their lives following a dream they never realized.  Some were and are the most talented people in the computer industry.

    Why did so many fail?

    Why did so many invest so much money and time into the development of PDAs?  It’s a fascinating question.  Besides the key notion of portability, computers were considered to difficult to use, which restricted the size of the market.  The PDA was meant to be as easy to use as paper but as powerful as a computer; humans would interact with the device through a pen on a small screen. Handwriting was considered a more natural way to interact especially because so few actually knew how to type.

    Two things went wrong with this concept.  First, handwriting recognition is a difficult computational problem, and it was just not yet a feasible technology with the portable computing power available at that time.  It might seem amazing that so many great minds did not recognize this, but I have seen this pattern happen time and time again.  Second, people do not really want to use handwriting on their computers, as I think we can now clearly see.  Although we have the computational capability to recognize handwriting on portable devices, almost no one uses handwriting on such devices.  Instead, we are happy to type on glass as proven by today’s smartphones.

    So, why did so many venture capitalists and corporations invest so much in PDAs?  Well, I don’t think VCs are very strategic.  I’ve often joked that VCs approach market research by counting the number of entrepreneurs coming into their offices with virtually the same business plan.  If so many smart people want to start companies to do the same thing, they figure that thing must make sense.  Once a few VCs begin to invest in a particular area, other VCs jump in as followers.  Then, VCs need to find others to invest the bulk of the next rounds of financing.  Getting large corporations to invest is especially helpful, as they are generally thought to be less sensitive to valuation.  A few large corporations succumb to the notion that the idea must make sense because so many VCs have invested.  Other large corporations, fearing they’ll be left out in the cold, then decide to start internal projects, which eventually fail.  Seeking an alternative, the corporations buy the startups instead.  If the timing works out right, the VCs and a startup’s employees can earn significant returns before the business fails, but if it starts to fail before it sells, only the early-stage VC investors usually make any money.

    Considering the history of the PDA as an example of such institutional behavior, we might ask ourselves if this kind of thing is still going on.  I think it is and would point to Virtual Reality as one example.  Over $3 billion was raised by VR startups in 2017.  The most prominent being Magic Leap who has raised $2.3 billion dollars to date.

    GO never got going

    Turning back to GO, it turns out that Intel was an investor.  Though I knew that when I started Jerry’s book, I forgot the full story.  As frequent readers of this blog will recall, I was co-founder (along with Les Vadasz, one of the founding team of Intel)  of what became Intel Capital, we called it Corporate Business Development (CBD).  In Jerry’s book, I learned that I had not initiated Intel’s investment in his company.

    I started doing early-stage investments and acquisitions for Intel in 1988.  I had a few people working for me, and I reported to Les Vadasz, who managed Intel’s Systems Division in addition to trying to manage me.  Then Les went on sabbatical and taught at Harvard for a while, during which I reported to Frank Gill (who had taken over from Les) and later to Dick Boucher (who kept Frank from firing me—Frank was not interested in venture investing).  When Les returned to Intel in 1991, he decided to devote himself full-time to acquisitions and venture investing, and together we set up CBD.  Before that, some investments were made directly by the various business groups at Intel.

    John Doerr, a former Intel employee an partner at Kleiner Perkins, brought Jerry Kaplan to meet with Andy Grove about making an investment in GO.  Jerry’s book describes those discussions.  For Intel, the key was for GO to commit to move their product from the Intel 286 to the Intel 386 processor and to agree to always port GO’s operating system (PenPoint) first to the Intel Architecture.  Though Kaplan was unhappy about these requirements, he needed Intel’s money and blessing to help GO close a big round of financing.

    At some point, Les asked me to meet with the GO team, which was having some problems.  I went to their offices in a large building in Foster City, San Mateo.  There I met with the founder, Jerry Kaplan, and members of his team, including the legendary Bill Campbell, recently joined as CEO.  I had met Bill many years earlier when he ran Claris, then the software arm of Apple.  Bill and I later developed a friendship.  He was a fantastic man who sadly, died a few years ago.   After GO failed, Bill went on to a very successful career as CEO of Intuit, board member of Apple, and advisor to many prominent Silicon Valley companies.  He “coached” Steve Jobs, as well as Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the founders of Google).  Bill and I both lived in Palo Alto when I worked at Intel.  We would occasionally meet up there to chat.

    I’m not sure whether Intel lost money on its investment.  When GO started, it had a hardware group.  Later, it decided to concentrate on developing its pen-based operating system, spinning out the hardware group into what became EO, which got a large investment from AT&T.  Eventually, GO and EO both merged. AT&T invested enough to become majority owner of the new entity.  Part of that investment went to fund the combined company, but part of it bought shares from existing investors, including Kleiner Perkins and, I assume, Intel.  According to Jerry, Kleiner Perkins got their money back and more, while the founders and employees of GO got nothing in the end.  Kleiner Perkins was always very good at making sure they did well even when their portfolio companies did not, but that is another story.

    At the end of the book, Jerry rightly wonders not why GO failed, but why it lasted so long and could raise so much money.

    Besides Jerry Kaplan and Bill Campbell, GO had many successful alumni: Stratton Sclavos later founded Verisign ( a company in which Intel invested) Randy Komisar became CEO of LucasArts and later a partner at Kleiner Perkins, and Mike Homer was VP of Marketing at Netscape when it made its very significant IPO.

    The magic moment

    General Magic, spun off from Apple in 1990, was perhaps the most impactful independent PDA company—impactful, that is, in the sense that it was a highly visible failure.  It was founded by Marc Porat, Andy Hertzfeld, and Bill Atkinson.  Andy and Bill were the two people most critical to the development of the Macintosh.  Marc, strangely enough, produced a film commissioned by Digital Equipment Corporation to celebrate that company’s 25th anniversary, a movie in which I played the “leading role.”  I knew Marc very well professionally and personally.  He was a masterful storyteller which, combined with the pedigree of the other founders, made a very compelling pitch, especially to corporate partners.  General Magic raised $200 million from 16 strategic partners, including Sony and AT&T.  They also raised $96 million in an IPO. The valuation was $834M The stock price doubled on its first day of trading.  The professional investors who were able to buy stock in the IPO sold off their shares and price dropped back to close at the offering price.  That was the company’s high point.  Its PDA product was not at all successful.  Marc Porat was replaced a year after the IPO, and most of the team left.  The company staggered along for another eight years before bankruptcy.

    General Magic’s device was more or less an intelligent terminal.  They had a very sophisticated model of networked computing, with various computational tasks assigned to computers across the network.  Though their interface still used a pen, General Magic avoided handwriting recognition, displaying a keyboard on the screen which one could tap using the pen.

    I can remember that I was impressed with some of their concepts, especially their networking model which created a distributed system. I am pretty sure that Intel did not invest, but I’m not sure why. I know I had several meetings at General Magic, and I can remember explaining the company to Les and others.

    Even though General Magic came out of Apple, Apple only owned 10% of the company.  John Sculley, Apple’s CEO (Steve Jobs had already been forced out), started an internal, competitive PDA project, called Newton.  Many in General Magic felt that Apple stole ideas from their company. Newton had insufficient connectivity and relied on handwriting recognition, which was not very accurate, but it completely sucked the air out of the market for General Magic.  The first Newton units shipped in 1993, and the product was not successful.  The last Newton was made in 1998, and its failure helped turn the market against the idea of PDAs.

    The alumni of General Magic are very impressive.  Besides the founders, Ton Fadell later co-invented the iPod and iPhone and later founded Nest.  Megan Smith later became the CTO of the United States under President Obama (a position since eliminated).  Andy Rubin founded Android, Pierre Omidyar founded eBay, and Steve Perlman co-founded of Web TV, among many more.

    Recently, a documentary on General Magic was released.  I have not yet seen it, but here is the trailer.

    WinPad

    Besides Apple with the Newton, many corporations had PDA projects.  WinPad was one of these, which I only mention because I was involved.  In 1992, Andy Grove asked me to take the lead in coordinating with Microsoft to deliver their needs for consumer products.  Intel had no interest at that time in the consumer market, but Microsoft did.  My job was primarily to keep Bill Gates happy and make sure they did not turn to our biggest competitor, AMD.  My counterpart was Rob Glaser at first.  When he left, towards the end of 1992, to found Real Networks, I worked with Craig Mundie, who eventually became Microsoft CTO.

    We identified three major consumer projects.  The first project, which never really got started, was a game console.  The second was an intelligent set-top box. WinPad was the third.  I’ve written a lot in the past about the set-top box project (internally nicknamed Pandora’s box at Intel), because it eventually led to the creation of today’s residential broadband network (with no thanks to Microsoft).

    I coordinated a team to work with Microsoft to prototype the WinPad and help develop partnerships that could take it to market.  I thought the WinPad had a chance because it used the Microsoft code base and therefore would be appealing to corporations. I did not think it would be a consumer product.  Companies like Compaq, Dell, and even IBM started projects based on the WinPad.  However, the project ended sometime in 1993, probably because it could not meet its cost goal.

    Visionaries or Dreamers

    I like to say a Visionary is a Dreamer with a PR department.  Much can be learned by studying the history of the PDA.  Billions of dollars were spent pursuing an idea that was not only technically unfeasible but also undesirable, most likely, to its target market.  Brilliant entrepreneurs spent many of their most precious years chasing the dream of the PDA.  Some of the most successful venture capitalists invested hundreds of millions of dollars in early-stage PDA companies, and key firms in the computer and communications industries spent hundreds of millions of dollars either in investments into early-stage companies or on their own internal projects.  PDA companies taken public later failed entirely.

    Just as we have examples of such failures, we also have examples of success.  Once early-stage companies like Amazon, Google, and Facebook grew to become enormously successful.

    How is it possible to distinguish between the two?  You might have to wait for my book to find out.

    History of Pen Computing

    Bill Campbell

    Bill and Andy’s excellent adventure

    More on GM

    GM IPO

    Case Study of GM

  • My interview with the Huffington Post

    Here is a blog post, I don’t have to write.  The journalist that did the interview,  Yitzi Weiner,  left the Huffington Post they took down all his work which I find kind of strange.   This included the interview with me.  So I am posting it here on my blog.

     

    5 THINGS I WISH SOMEONE TOLD ME WHEN I FIRST STARTED

    INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

    I had the pleasure of interviewing Avram Miller, self-proclaimed corporate trouble maker.  Avram was formerly Corp. Vice President of Business Development at Intel and the Co-Founder of Intel Capital.  He was the driving force behind creating residential high speed internet in the early ‘90s.

    1. Yitzi: Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory”? (If you share an inspirational or aspirational backstory, we will be able to publish this interview in Thrive Global as well as Huffpost)

    I was a poor student but some would say (like me) a gifted mind. I tested out of high school but never made it to university. Instead I became a merchant seaman and sailed back and forth from San Francisco to where I lived in Asia. Skipping my time as a civil rights protester, a jazz musician and a tutor to economically disadvantaged high school students in East Palo Alto, I ended up in medical science. I developed the first equipment to take bio feedback for brainwaves, working with Joe Kamiya at UC Medical in San Francisco. I went on to develop systems for intensive and cardio vascular diagnostics at the Medical School at Erasmus University, where I ran the computer department at the Thoraxcenter. Later I ended up as an Adjunct Professor at the School of Medicine in Tel Aviv, I was 28 years old. Still no degree.  Fast forward and I am Corporate Vice President of Business Development at Intel where I co-founded Intel Capital and laid the foundation for residential high speed broadband. I think my lack of a formal education was an important factor in giving me the motivation to take risks and be innovative. My full bio can be read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avram_Miller.

    1. Yitzi:Can you tell me about the most interesting projects you are working on?

    For the last five years, I have focused on the topic of improving sleep quality. Most discussions about sleep have to do with sleep quantity, but I believe the quality of our sleep can be significantly improved as well. Opening the door to better sleep quality provides major health benefits overall and especially with improvements in cognitive function. In particular, I have been working with a company called Sommetrics (www.sommetrics.com) that has an innovative treatment for disorders of the upper airway, such as Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Snoring. This brings me full circuit back to my early days designing medical devices.

    1. Yitzi: Which person or which company do you most admire and why?

    My answer to this question would change over time. At the moment, I admire Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon. He has the ability to never get stuck. Jeff went from selling books online, to being the largest online retailer, to creating the leading internet cloud service and now moving into groceries. The greatest disjointedness in my career was my inability to get Intel to think beyond microprocessors and move into networking.

    1. Yitzi: How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

    I have always been involved with non-profits in various ways. For instance, I was the founding Chair of Plugged In, a technology center for disadvantage youth in East Palo Alto.  Currently, I am mentoring and providing financial support to high school and college kids from various parts of the world. I believe the greatest leverage comes from helping young people not only reach their own potential but to learn to help others to do this as well. But my greatest contribution has been my children. All three are active in non-profit work. In fact, my two sons have always worked in the non-profit domain. 

    1. Yitzi: What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)
    • Learn to be both strategic and tactical.  A great strategy with poor execution looks like a bad strategy. 

    When I was at Digital Equipment Corp. as Group Manager, Professional Computers, I did not spend enough time with the details. I was focused on what was great and did not ask myself enough “what could go wrong.”  I later learned that trait from Andy Grove.

    • Realize that you will make mistakes in hiring and take action to correct those mistakes quickly.

    We all make hiring mistakes. I would feel responsible and spend a lot of time trying to turn a mistake into a victory but it never happened. It would have been better for all if I had just let the person go.

    • Be more patient and adjust your communication style. 

    Always think that you are responsible for poor communications. If someone did not understand my point, I might think they were stupid and stop communicating with them rather than trying a different approach. I had this problem a lot when I first joined Intel, yet a lot of the problem was cultural. Intel was not going to change its culture for me, so I needed to adapt.  One of the things I learned was to be more muted in my presentations. I was over enthusiastic for that company’s culture.

    • Get more sleep

    I used to think that sleep was a waste of time. I was proud that I only slept four and a half hours. Now I know how bad that was and have made strides to correct it.

    1. Yitzi: I have been blessed with the opportunity to interview and be in touch with some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this, or I might be able to introduce you.    

    I would like to meet Elon Musk.

    Video: http://avram.tv/afer-intel/bob-cringley-interview-on.html 

     

     

  • An Analysis of my leadership effectiveness from 1989

    I have been cleaning up my home office and I am running into all sorts of interesting materials. One thing I found, I thought would be worth while sharing here. It is a Leadership Effectiveness Analysis that I took while at Intel in 1989. I had joined Intel in 1984 after the failure of Franklin Computer. My career at Intel was going ok but not great. I was made a group officer of the Corporate Strategic Staff (a collection of stuff that did not really fit in with the Intel organizational structure) under Les Vadasz. In 1988, I began the activity that ended up becoming Intel Capital (the most successful corporate venture group ever, I believe). At that time I was trying to do some Merger and Acquisition work, as well as some early stage investing.

    I felt I was not being very effective at convincing senior management (mostly Andy Grove) to support my ideas. Interestingly, I had a good relationship with most of the Intel board but when it came to the Intel senior management, not so much. I felt that there was something wrong but could not really figure it out. I reached out to the HR department and asked them if they had any consultants that worked with the company that might be able to help me. They sent me to a psychologist that specialized in working with management. Unfortunately, I no longer remember his name. We determined that the major problem I had was that I was too enthusiastic about my proposals. That because Intel was so conservative and analytical, this enthusiasm was seen as a lack of objectivity. I eventually changed my approach to presenting proposals to appear to be more “on the one hand and on the other hand” – laying out the pros and cons. I would also make stuff up to support my position but in ways that made the data seem very objective. The result of that was my proposals were generally accepted. Most of this worked out so that eventually, my judgment was trusted and I could go back to being the enthusiastic presenter.

    As part of my work with the corporate shrink, I did an analysis of my leadership effectiveness. Below you can read it. I only had a hard copy so I scanned it and did OCR which is why it does not look as professional as the real thing.

    The analysis was done 27 years ago. I think it really nailed me for good and for bad. Reading through it again after all these years, and at the end of my professional life, helped me understand why I find it difficult to be an advisor or a board member. Frankly, I am not that collaborative which is what is required in such a role.

    I look forward to comments – especially from those that worked with me or for me.

     

    Here is the analysis

    Management

    Research Group

    LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS ANALYSIS

    Profile Interpretation :  Avram Miller, Intel , August, 1989

    By Thomas M. Rand, Ph.D.

    President

    MANAGEMENT RESEARCH GROUP

    Your leadership practices profile approach problem solving from a particularly innovative and creative perspective. This indicates that you can be particularly receptive to endorsing approaches which are new, experimental, novel, and perhaps even risky. By contrast, the existing information suggests a hesitancy to endorse approaches which are conservative and those which blindly endorse the status quo.

    Somewhat more broadly, your profile reflects an individual who has reasonably low motivations for safety, stability, or predictability. You are seen to be particularly motivated by opportunities to express yourself in a creative way, and consequently, you will relate well to environments which not only require innovative expression, but those which are ambiguous, dynamic, fast-moving, and varied.

    This is seen to be the profile of an individual who is reasonably unstructured. In the same way that your motivations for predictability and stability are low, you are not likely to do well in environments which are highly structured. You tend to be a rather independent person who takes his own counsel rather fully and will want to go forward in a way where your own autonomy is preserved. You are not likely to do well in situations which serve to constrain your options or what you feel is the best way to attack a particular situation. In certain respects, your profile is rather entrepreneurial to the extent that you can be particularly independent in pursuing a course of action which is creative and risky without terribly strong concerns for your own affiliation with the group or team of which you are a member.

    Consistent with the interpretation that you can take your own counsel fully and be self-directed, there is a related interpretation that you are quite prepared to sell and market your own ideas to those around you. You are seen to be particularly spontaneous and communicative in a sales and marketing way and may be a particularly strong spokesman for those approaches in which you strongly believe.

    As you might infer from the above information, your profile reflects an individual who can react to rather immediate events and situations within his environment. Although you may possess certain strategic skills, the current information indicates that your behavioral predisposition is to react to immediate issues. Consequently, you may engage issues rather quickly and probably forcefully. You are seen to be an individual who gives quite some consideration to the overall impact he makes upon the organization, and in this regard, you may operate with a certain theatrical flair. You are not seen to be the shy and retiring type; rather, you may look for opportunities to promote yourself and your ideas in rather visible ways. Clearly, issues of recognition and visibility are strong motivators for you.

    The existing information also indicates that you are rather highly identified with the management role. You may gain quite a degree of satisfaction from the whole notion of being in charge of things and being seen as a person with authority.

    Your interpersonal style is rather dominant and controlling. In this regard, the current information suggests that your motivations for power and control run at an above average level. This contributes not only to a degree of interpersonal dominance, but it also contributes to the interpretation that you can put quite a degree of pressure on others to perform and to behave in certain ways. You can be oriented towards high standards and do not apologize for the need to put a certain degree of pressure upon others to be task oriented.

    The above paragraph points out that you are more task and production oriented that people and relationship focused. You do not show strong motivations to support and nurture the behavior of others or to have a strong sense of belonging to the broader team or organization. Clearly, this is the profile of a self-directed individual who can go forward in a particularly independent way.

    Certainly, therefore, you are seen to be one who will orient himself towards those objectives that are important to you. You are not nearly as given to cooperative and collegial dealings, and you probably will not accommodate or defer your position easily. The notion of having control and competing successfully is likely to take on a higher priority than acting in ways which would be described as cooperative or collegial. The current information suggests that you do not have a great deal of tolerance for consensual decision-making approaches which are bureaucratic and which slow down your own predisposition towards action. You are not seen to be a person who proactively seeks the attitudes and opinions of others in order to arrive at decisions characterized by consensus.

    In the same way that you are not likely to be blindly cooperative or collegial with peers and subordinates within the organization, you are not likely to be dependent upon your authority system. You may, in fact, be one who questions authority and one who debates the overall validity of decisions coming down to you from above. Given the earlier interpretation that you can be rather rejecting of conservative and traditional orientations, it would not be surprising to find that you can operate with certain anti authoritarian predispositions.

    Although the profile would suggest that you can be spontaneous and outgoing, it would be incorrect to conclude that you are naturally empathetic. You are likely to meet people quite easily and be seen as verbal and spontaneous, but not necessarily warm. The current evidence suggests, in fact, that there are reasonably low motivations on your part to nurture, reinforce, and support the activities of others.

    Thomas M. Rand, Ph.D.

    President

    MANAGEMENT RESEARCH GROUP

  • The Future History of Technology

    The book I am probably not going to write

    From time to time, I think about writing a book on the evolution of information technology. 

    I am designing it in my head.  Sometimes it is divided into three sections, which are simply the past, present and future. Frankly, I am not that interested in the present. I love writing about the history of the computer industry since I have been around a long time and I was present for most of it.  I also have a lot of  anecdotes to share. However, it is the future that has always claimed my attention since I have been a child.

    Many of you know that I was a very successful venture capital investor when I was Corporate Vice President of Business Development and Co Founder of Intel Capital. In fact, during my tenure, we were the most successful corporate venture investors, and maybe the most successful venture group over all. There were many others, especially Les Vadasz, that contributed to that accomlishment.  I have written a great deal about that and there a many articles, interviews and even videos discussing those times which seem so long ago and will not go much into that here.

    How to invest: Let me count the ways

    There are different styles of venture investing.  Many venture capitalists bet on the team.  In fact, the core competency of many of the most successful VCs is identifying the right CEO.  Frankly, I am not that good at identifying the best talent. What I focused on was determining the right areas in which to invest.  I called them “neighborhoods”which were really  business disruptions caused by changes in technologies.  A great example was the impact on the media industry resulting from digital distribution of content direct to consumers (iTunes), a disruption that is still going on.  Another is the impact of the internet on retail distribution (Amazon).  A very recent example is the impact the “sharing” economy (AirBnB) is having on the hotel industry.

    My talent was in identifying these opportunities well in advance of others.  In fact, I would often be too early.  The book that I will probably never write, will deal extensively with how I was able to identify these “neighborhoods.”  It is not something I fully understand myself.  I am also not sure if I am still able to do this.  I certainly no longer had the considerable resources that I had when I was at Intel.  By the way, my current focus is on the impact of technology on direct to consumer health care.

    The impact of high-speed residential broadband

    From about 1993 to 1999 (when I left Intel), one of my tasks was not just investing in the opportunities but helping others understand as well. That was one of the reasons I would write articles and speak at conferences of what would have been considered at the time, untreated  industries.  At first, it would seem strange that an executive from a Semi Conductor company would give a key-note address at the National Association of Broadcasters but in retrospect it all made sense.

    My job at Intel was strategic.  It was to create opportunities for intel by growing the market of PCs and as a result, the market for Intel chips.  Venture Investing was a tool for accomplishing this but had a secondary benefit of earning billions of dollars of profit for Intel.  Using some of this profit, I was able to use to fund very important initiatives like the creation of residential broadband which in turn created new investment opportunities.

    I recently came across an article I wrote for Advertising Age in 1996 (about three years from the first deployment by Intel of Cable Modems with Comcast and Viacom (who had a cable business at the time.)

    When you read it, please keep in mind this was written 21 years ago. Imagine you are in 1996 and have the point of view reflected in the article and the opportunity to invest in early stage companies.  You can see, that it might not be so surprising that Intel was able to get such great returns from its venture investments.

    TECHNOLOGY MARKETING;  COMPUTERS LEARNING USERS’ PREFERENCES–AND ADVERTISING WILL GROW MORE SELECTIVE

    By Avram Miller. Published on November 11, 1996 by Advertising Age

    Twenty-five years ago, the microprocessor was invented. The first microprocessors were simple devices when compared to the advanced capabilities of today’s products. At that time, it was impossible to imagine that these devices would evolve into the engines of the Information Age.

    In 1965, Gordon Moore, the co-founder, and chairman of Intel Corp., accurately predicted that the capabilities of semiconductor devices (of which the microprocessor is one) would double every 18 months.

    MOORE’S LAW

    Following that prediction, known as Moore’s Law, this would mean that a microprocessor’s capabilities would result in a tenfold increase over five years or a 100-fold increase in 10 years.

    Since its inception, the microprocessor has had an amazing impact on many aspects of our lives. However, it is in its role as the brains of the personal computer where this has been most evident. Since the introduction of the PC in the early 1980s, we have witnessed an explosive growth in the use of computers, and have seen the computer expand from a central information facility to become the primary desktop tool of most business professionals.

    In the last several years, we also have seen it become a major consumer product. About 40% of American homes now have purchased one or more PCs. While many industries have been completely transformed by the PC, its impact on the advertising industry has been mostly limited to a tool for production and business management. This is about to change in a fundamental way.

    The personal computer is rapidly becoming a new medium for information, entertainment, education, and commerce. The microprocessors now in development by Intel continue the pace of Moore’s Law and will greatly enhance the PC.

    Advanced video, audio and graphics capabilities will provide a powerful environment for media. Advances in communications technology over transports such as phone lines and satellites will greatly increase the access to media. The rapid growth of the Internet (itself fueled by the microprocessor) will combine with the PC to create one of the most powerful mediums for communications even known: the connected PC. And in becoming a new medium, it will have a profound impact on the ad industry, advertisers, and their customers.

    There is a lot of discussion about advertising on the Internet. Some believe the role of advertising will be limited. Reasons for this belief include the limited size of the consumer market for Internet-connected PCs, the lack of compelling content, poor measurement systems, and privacy issues. Many believe the power in this new medium is its ability to target audiences even down to the individual-the promise of one-to-one marketing in the extreme.

    NO OVERNIGHT ACTION

    While we cannot expect to see a total restructuring overnight, the history of the PC teaches that its impact will happen faster and more powerfully than most expect. Hundreds of venture-capital-backed companies and most of the leading technology companies are working to make the PC a powerful vehicle for advertisers to reach customers.

    Further, we are seeing the emergence of a new generation of consumers raised on interactivity, which is one of the most compelling attributes of the PC. As several studies show, members of Generation X are voting with their eyeballs as they spend more and more time using their computers and less time watching television.

    The relevance of advertising will be significantly enhanced as PCs learn about their users’ preferences and select the most appropriate advertising. We will see a separation of advertising and programming so that customers may actually subscribe to advertising and use “coupons” to pay for programming (see http://www.cybergold.com for an example).

    Ads will no longer be limited by time and space. Customers will choose to interact with advertising that truly assists them in making decisions. Not only will ads be more pertinent, customers will be able to order products while interacting with these ads, thereby increasing the value of the experience.

    Currently, advertising on the connected PC suffers from poor production values. This results from the combination of limited communications bandwidth (the speed of sending information to the computer) and the inability to assemble the advertisement in advance of its use.

    RANDOM BROWSERS

    Consumers typically browse the World Wide Web on the Internet in a somewhat random fashion. When they reach a destination, small advertisements known as banners are displayed. In order not to introduce delays in a medium that currently is slow, (because of limitations of the communications links), the audio-visual quality of the ad is not compelling.

    However, new techniques are about to be introduced that will allow rich audio-visual advertisements to be placed in advance on the consumer’s PC and called up at the appropriate time. This means that in addition to a high degree of customer relevancy, ads can be exceptionally entertaining. These Internet commercials will take advantage of high-resolution video, high-fidelity audio, and advanced 3D graphics to truly exploit the capabilities of the connected PC to deliver compelling advertising.

    Avram Miller, VP of business development for Intel Corp., is charged with establishing strategic alliances for the advancement of PC technology and the growth of new media. Before joining Intel, he was president of Franklin Computer Corp. and a group manager at Digital Equipment Corp.