Intel CEO sees no great changes in demand

FRANKFURT: Intel, the world's biggest chipmaker, is not seeing a significant drop in demand caused by a U.S. economic slowdown and is protected by the fact that it exports most of its chips, its chief executive said. "Until now, we are not experiencing any dramatic changes worldwide for our products, not even at home in the United States," Paul Otellini told Germany's Spiegel magazine in an interview released on Saturday ahead of publication on Monday.

Corroborating what vendors of business software have said recently, Otellini said companies normally invested more in information technology in hard times because it was a way of boosting productivity. "Even on Wall Street, which has been severely shaken, considerable investments are being made in this area right now," he said. Otellini added that Intel actually benefited to some degree from the slower U.S. economy because the weak U.S. dollar helped its exports, which bring in 80 percent of Intel's sales.