Intel Corporation
"A corporation is a business that, although
owned by one or more investors,
legally has the rights and duties of an
individual. Corporations have the right
to buy, sell, and own property.
Corporations may make legal contracts, hire and
fire workers, set prices, and
be sued, fined, and taxed. A business must obtain
a charter of incorporation
from a state legislature or Congress to be legally
recognized as a
corporation."(Watson, p211) While corporations didn't exist
until the mid to
late 1800s, the idea of the corporation had existed since the
early 1600s. It
all started with English merchants who started trading companies
to help fund
the early colonies. If the colonies thrived, the stockholders
reaped in the
profit. (Watson, p211) A corporation is started when a sole
proprietorship, a
one-owner business, that is the most common form of business
institution in
the US, or a partnership, an association of two or more people in
order to
run a business, decides that they don't want to be personally
responsible for
any loss the company might have. (Watson, p211) Or they might
decide that
they want the company to "live on" after they die, that is
for the business
to have "unlimited life". Since neither of these
goals can be reached with a
sole proprietorship, or a partnership, the owner (or
owners, as the case may
be) decide that he (they) want to "convert"
their business to a corporation.
The owner(s) file a charter of incorporation
from the government to be
legally recognized as a corporation. (Boyd, March, 99)
The owner(s) then
sell shares of stock, documents representing ownership in the
corporation, to
investors. These investors buy and sell the stock to small
investors, or
stockholders. Since there is no limit to the number of
shareholders to a
company, the investors vote (for every share you own you get
one vote) on a
board of directors. The board of directors are in charge of
hiring the people
responsible for the every-day running of the corporation.
These positions
include, but are not limited to: the president, vice president,
and other
chief administrators. (Watson, p211-212) If a corporation reaps a
profit,
investors may receive a dividend, or a share of the monetary gain made
by the
company. The elected board of directors choose whether the money will
go
towards profit, expansion of the company, modernization of the company,
or
research and development. (Watson, p212) "With about 85% of
the
microprocessor market, Intel is definitely inside. Its microprocessors
--
including the Pentium -- have been providing brains for IBM-compatible
PCs
1981."(http://thestandard.net....) Intel started on July 16, 1968
when
magnetic core memory was the leading technology at the time. They were
trying to
make semi-conductor memory practical with silicon memory.
Unfortunately for
Intel semi-conductor memory cost 100 times more than
magnetic core memory, but
the silicon had many advantages - smaller size,
greater performance, and reduced
energy consumption. Then, in late 1968,the
Japanese company Busicom asked Intel
to produce a series of chips (twelve
chips for every unit) for a group of
programmable calculators that they were
producing. Normally, chips were made
specifically for each product. Well, the
designers at Intel decided that they
would make a general purpose logical
chip to replace all of the many different
varieties of chips that would go
into the different electronics. The logical
chip was a major success; the
only problem was that Busicom had the rights to
the chip. Realizing that this
chip could have a major impact on society, the
founders Bob Noyce and Gordon
Moore praised the new chip, while people in the
corporation still wanted to
stick with producing memory. Intel bought the rights
to the chip from the
struggling Japanese company for $60,000, and this
"paved the way for Intel's
developing vision of ubiquitous (universal)
microprocessor-based
computing."(.../cn71898a.htm). The 4004 microprocessor
set was introduced
near the end of 1971. "Smaller than a thumbnail and
packing 2300 transistors,
the $200 chip delivered as much computing power as the
first electronic
computer, ENIAC. By comparison, ENIAC relied on 18,000 vacuum
tubes packed
into 3,000 cubic feet when it was built in 1946. The 4004 executed
60,000
operations in one second, primitive by today's standards, but a
major
breakthrough at the time."."(.../cn71898a.htm). Directly after
the
4004, Intel introduced the 8008 microprocessor, which processed eight
bits of
information at a time, twice as much as the original chip. This
technological
break-through put microprocessors everywhere, from fast food
restaurants to
airport control towers. Yet no one had thought of the personal
computer, until;
Intel Chairman Emeritus Moore remembers, "In the
mid-1970s, someone came to
me with an idea for what was basically the PC. The
idea was that we could outfit
an 8080 processor with a keyboard and a monitor
and sell it in the home market.
I asked, 'What's it good for?' And the
only answer was that a housewife could
keep her recipes on it. I personally
didn't see anything useful in it, so we
never gave it another thought." Intel
decided that they would try to become
the processor-manufacture for IBM. They
received some static at first, but
eventually; Intel's long-term commitment
to the microprocessor product line and
ability to produce in large masses
convinced IBM to choose the 8088 chip
processor for the first personal
computer. Intel was thrilled at the thought,
but had no idea the PC would
become so popular. The Intel sales engineer who
worked with IBM on the
project recalled, "At the time, a great account was
one that generated 10,000
units a year. Nobody comprehended the scale of the PC
business would grow to
tens of millions of units every
year."."(.../cn71898a.htm) In 1982, Intel
introduced the 286 chip.
With 134,000 transistors, it was three times as
powerful as the current chips.
This 286 chip was first used in IBM's very
memorable machine, the PC-AT. In
1985, the Intel386 processor came off
the showroom floor. With 275,000
transistors, the chip was a huge jump from
the competition. The Deskpro by
Compaq was the first PC that used the 386
chip. The Intel 486 processor was
released in 1989. This new chip had all the
fixins': 1.2 million transistors and
was the record-breaking first chip to
have the first built-in math coprocessor.
In 1993, Intel introduced a
processor with five times the speed of the 486, the
Pentium processor.
The Pentium chip uses 3.1 million transistors. In 1997 Intel
started
introduced its MMX technology, a breed of chip build for high
multimedia
performance. After MMX took hold, it is now standard on all
Pentium processors.
In 1998 the Pentium II chip was released with
incredible speed and mind-blowing
processing power. ."(.../cn71898a.htm) The
Intel Corporation is an amazing
company that will be around for a very long
time. As of 1997 the company was
worth $26,273,000,000. The CEO of Intel is
Craig R. Barrett. Intel, as of 1997,
had 63,700 employees on its roster. In
my personal opinion, I feel that Intel is
a very reliable chip manufacturer,
I buy only Intel brand processors because of
their reliability, and I would
proudly join their workforce if at all possible.
Stock Exchange: "market
for the sale and purchase of securities of
corporations and municipalities,
and, in some cases, of certificates
representing commodities of trade."(Funk
and Wagnalls p359) The first stock
exchange to be built was in Antwerp,
Belgium in 1531. In 1773 the brokers of
London formed an exchange in
England. In New York City, brokers met to exchange
stocks under a button tree
until they organized the New York Stock Exchange. (Sobel,
p904) The NYSE only
let in stocks that it deemed "good enough". Those
that didn't pass the test
where traded outside on the curb of the NYSE building.
This "curb
exchange" later formed the American Stock Exchange, or the
ASEX.
(Edustock .../3088/) In the 1920's the American economy was booming, due
in
an increase in industrialization, and an increase in technology. There was
an
increase in wages, an increase in spending, and an increase in stock
prices.
People bought billions of dollars worth of stock -on margin, mind
you- and
economists said that the uprise would continue. Because of the large
number of
people buying in margin, left the stock market in a vulnerable
position. Many
stockholders, ready to reap a fortune, invested all they had,
even mortgaged
their homes and emptied their bank accounts. As the prices
spiraled higher and
higher, economists began warring people of the turmoil
that could lie ahead, but
everyone was interested in making money and paid no
heed. Finally, in October of
1929, the purchasing frenzy calmed, but then
burst into a selling bonanza. On
Thursday, October 24th, 1929 the strong
iron bars of the U.S. economy began to
give way. Stock prices fell to the
floor as investors struggled desperately to
sell. When the New York Stock
Exchange closed that day, it had lost over four
billion dollars. By the next
Monday, the 28th, a widespread panic took form.
Thousands of investors,
some "normal", working citizens, were ruined
financially. By the end of 1929,
stock values had dropped by fifteen billion
dollars.
(www.thehistorychannel.co.uk) "There have been many market crashes
since 1929
however this is the one that had the greatest impact. It is still to
early to
say for sure whether the economic situation that is effecting global
stock
markets will result in such a scenario. The only fact that is certain is
that
we are in the middle of a large correction in the value of global
stock
prices. With crises in Asia, Latin America and now Russia rolling from
one to
another, the fear of a 1929 style crash is once again
with
us."(www.thehistorychannel.co.uk)
Bibliography
"Boyd, Donald.
Economics Lecture: Corporations, March 1999 Company
Profile-The Intel
Corporation" The Industry Standard. 1999.
http://thestandard.net/companies/company_display/0,159
1,13787,00.html
(3/17/99) Edustock, http://tqd.advanced.org/3088/ (3/23/99)
Intel
Corporation, www.intel.com: The following documents were used under
this
domain:
.../pressroom/archive/releases/Cn31799a.htm?iid=cnfy+cn19&(3/17/99)
.../pressroom/archive/backgrnd/cn71898a.htm
(3/17/99) .../pressroom/archive/backgrnd/cn71898c.htm
(3/17/99)
.../pressroom/archive/backgrnd/cn71898d.htm
(3/17/99)
.../pressroom/kits/prfaqs.htm (3/17/99) Sobel, Robert.
"Stock
Exchange." World Book Encyclopedia "Stock Exchange." Funk
and
Wagnalls New Encyclopedia "Stock Market Crash of 1929 Repeated? - A
History
profile of the Wall St Crash of 1929."
http://www.thehistorychannel.co.uk/topstory/1929.htm
(3/24/99) Watson, Jr.,
George G., Economics. Sacramento, McDougal, Littell and
Company 1986