The State's biggest foreign employer Intel plans to start selling consumer devices like portable digital music players as sales of personal computers slow, the Wall Street Journal reported in its online edition today.
The company, which employs over 4,000 people at its Leixlip plant in Co Kildare, will unveil its new digital music player on Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Chief executive Mr Craig Barrett will give the keynote address at the conference and will also detail two other new products which Intel will begin selling later in 2001.
The two other products are the ChatPad, an instant-messaging and e-mail device, and a WebTablet, which will let people surf the Internet using a hardcover book-sized wireless screen.
Intel, which derives more than 80 per cent of its sales and profits from microprocessors, expects its new businesses to post sales growth of more than 50 per cent.
Intel shares closed off at $30-1/16 in Friday trading on the Nasdaq, well below their 52-week high of $75-13/16 and above a yearly low of $29-13/16.
Reuters