Intel always has been and will remain a strong tech and manufacturing-focused company.

Investors will tolerate a small increase in inventories -- about 5 to 10 percent -- as long as there is an expectation of strong third quarter sales.

Intel will be a key beneficiary of any kind of recovery in information technology [IT] spending in 2004 and 2005.

Many of the positions will be in manufacturing. The company expects to have new products, serving the area of rare genetic diseases.

This is disappointing. It sounds like a combination of both weaker demand for PCs and the continuing impact of some of these inventory excesses hurt them. All in all, it's a pessimistic near-term outlook.

We expect Apple to broaden its use of Intel processors with the likely introduction of new low-end and mid-range notebooks and also a likely Mac Mini home entertainment platform based on Intel architecture.