Intel Strategy on Display

As Intel's (INTC Quote) twice-yearly developers forum kicks into gear in San Francisco Tuesday, investors will have a twofold agenda. Not only will they key into big product pushes from the chip giant, but they'll look for Intel's strategic response to competitive hustle from rival Advanced Micro Devices(AMD Quote).

Much scuttlebutt has centered on whether Intel will demo a silicon architecture to match that of a chip already on the market from AMD. If Intel previews the chip during the conference as speculated, it would be a tacit admission that it's feeling the heat from AMD's two-for-one silicon strategy.

AMD's architecture has the capacity to crunch either 32 or 64 bits of data at a time, while Intel currently offers separate silicon for each purpose. Critics say Intel and co-developer Hewlett-Packard (HPQ Quote) screwed up by investing so much money and time in the beleaguered Itanium chip, which is optimized only for 64-bit applications. The two companies counter that the software applications will likely be built out over time, saying the chip will gain an audience as more customers start to need high-end computing. ...