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At first glance the silver haired gent seems to hide a lot of method behind
his warm smile. His people management skills are all too evident as he fields
questions deftly. So what's missing? Information, for one. As the new man
settled into his Indian boots, Intel India for all of the two hours retreated
into the recesses of a "quiet period".
Franklin B Jones walks into the room with the air of a man who will have much
to talk about a few months from now. Moving in from Santa Clara headquarters to
head Intel India's operations, Jones's synergy with outgoing Intel India
head Ketan Sampat is fairly evident. The wry sense of humor, subtle confidence,
engaging aura and clarity of direction is characteristic of the man, who will be
the first American employee of the company to lead Intel India's operations.
Intel, which set up its chip designing and software development centre in
Bangalore in 1999, has been headed by Indian expats throughout, Atul Vijaykar,
Avtar Saini, and Ketan Sampat. "We will build on our people strength and
continue investing into expanding our operations," Jones said, without
elaborating much.
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NEW
MAN IN: New Intel India President Frank Jones will be based
in Bangalore. Jones said he had no specific targets, but his
priorities would be to "develop people, leadership and
management". |
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Ketan Sampat, on his part, was predictably tight-lipped over reports of
dismissals of over 250 Intel employees on fraudulent conveyance claims.
"These are internal issues between the individuals and the company. It
would be inappropriate to comment on media reports," Sampat said. He was
equally circumspect on Intel's progress. "You could always check out the
IDC and MAIT figures and come to your own conclusions," he told reporters
at a formal gathering to introduce Jones.
For a man inspired by the R&D vision of his predecessor and his progress
in guiding e-governance projects at the central and state levels and driving
technology pilot programs in the rural areas, Jones declined further comment on
product-specific queries on India. "You know the facts," Sampat
helpfully interjected. Jones will be responsible for managing Intel's
relationship with the central and state governments, their entities, site
management, education initiatives and university engagements in India.
The Vista Angle
Sampat did not elaborate on development work at Intel on device driver software
for Microsoft's 64-bit Vista operating system. Isn't the new OS too hardware
dependent and configuration intensive for existing 32-bit systems? "Well,
Intel is developing the device driver range for Vista. Some of Intel's
graphics and media driver development is being done out of Bangalore," he
said. He also did not comment on whether Bangalore was specifically involved in
driver development for Vista. Device driver development alone out of Bangalore
currently engages the attention of about 500 Intel engineers.
The company curently employs about 2,500 engineers and Intel expects employee
strength to cross the 3,000 mark by end-2005. Headcount plans are currently on
target, and a moderate attrition rate down the year has not affected this,
Sampat said.
As Sampat packs his bags to move back to the US to focus on technology
innovation and emerging markets, Intel watchers have their next goal cut out-keeping
up with Mr Jones, his priorities, his expansion plans. For now, what we do know
is: a chip off the old Intel block has checked in with some clear designs on the
future.
Ravi Menon
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