John Lamb's week: Intel price cuts on the horizon?

Monday
Much has been written about the benefits and pitfalls of online exchanges and virtual markets. Now it is the turn of a 250-year-old physical exchange to push the internet boat out.

The Baltic Exchange, a market for buying and selling cargo space on ships, is launching balticexchange.com an online trading site for ship brokers.

Interestingly, the move online was spurred by the arrival of internet shipping exchanges, which threatened to cut out Baltic Exchange's broker members. Will the move to an electronic market be enough to keep them afloat?

This week top female A-level computer science students will be competing for an award designed to encourage more women to take up careers in IT. Students from around the UK will be put forward by examining bodies for consideration by a panel of judges in a scheme sponsored by software firm Axios.

The winner will be going on a trip to the US - just right for looking around at job prospects on the other side of the Atlantic.

Wednesday
Calling the internet a virtual world is a cliché, but for disabled people the prospect of being released from the restrictions of everyday life is not. In general web designers overlook disabled people when building sites.

For example, they fail to put useful information in tags which could be picked up by voice generators or other assistive systems. Material is presented in the form of over elaborate graphics or as voice recordings which are missed by some disabled people. Text is too small and so on.

The Post Office plans to show us how it should be done when it unveils a new access website on Wednesday. While the Post Office must be applauded, it is a measure of the low priority accorded IT for disabled people that the Post Office should regard its website as unusual enough to be newsworthy.

Linux and Unix systems come under the spotlight again this month with software company Caldera's Forum 2001. Midweek will see delegates wind up a three day Linux fest in Santa Cruz California. Caldera, the name refers to the bowl found on top of extinct volcanos, aims to unify the Linux and Unix operating systems. A tall order.

Operating system junkies can get a second fix at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Francisco, starting on 27 August. More discussion of how to develop, integrate and run Linux systems.

Sunday
Intel watchers are convinced that the company is planning to cut the prices of its fastest Pentium 4s by 50 per cent during August and introduce a new top end 1.9GHz Pentium processor.

Sunday 26 August has been widely tipped as the day for the big announcement. Craig Barrett, Intel's head honcho, may be a workaholic, but the Sabbath seems an odd day to make a big business announcement.

Whenever it happens, the move is important to Intel. The chipmaker has been feeling the pinch from AMD in recent months and is eager to win back market share from its Silicon Valley competitor.

The Athlon line of processors, rival to Intel's Pentiums has been outpointing them on speed and price. However, Intel has edged ahead in performance terms and is determined to regain lost ground in sales. Look out for more price cuts in the autumn, say observers. In the meantime, it is cheaper, quicker desktops all round.

For related news, see:
The silicon.com IT skills survey
http://www.silicon.com/ski