Companies to spend more on PCs in 2010: Intel

The world's largest chipmaker Intel expects corporate spending on personal computers to rise in 2010.

"Corporate spending on PCs will improve significantly in 2010 and emerging markets will grow faster than mature markets," Intel chief executive and president Paul Otellini told reporters in New Delhi on Tuesday. He, however, did not specify any numbers.

"What makes the Indian market exciting is that it is 10 years minus China in PC adoption. We have a chance to increase that," he said. "India is already a recognised world leader in IT. India's IT professionals are wonderfully talented. We have 2,500 of them," he added.

When asked if the delay in WiMAX spectrum auctions in India is hampering the growth plans in this segment, Otellini said the delay in conducting auction for WiMAX spectrum would not cause any disruption.

"WiMAX deployment worldwide is taking place for the past 12 months and at the worst, India would be six months behind. The auction is going to take place in January and the rates (WiMAX auction reserve price) seem reasonable," he added.

Meanwhile, while acknowledging that India is a major chip design centre, Otellini reiterated that his company had no chip manufacturing plans in India. He pointed out that Intel has a chip design centre in Bangalore. In 2007, former Intel chairman Craig Barrett had said the decision to overlook India was on account of the government's delay in announcing a policy for the sector.

At the same event, HCL Infosystems announced the launch of low-cost computing devices for offering broadband wireless connectivity in partnership with Intel and state-run telecom operator BSNL. The low-cost device, nettops, would be manufactured in India by HCL using Intel's atom processor, while BSNL would roll out WiMAX infrastructure.

The product will be launched after three months, HCL Infosystems chairman and CEO Ajai Chowdhry told reporters while declining to comment on the pricing. He added, though, that the price of the device is expected to be similar to that of existing netbooks, but the cost of Wimax capability would be an add-on.