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ORACLE EXPANDS RESEARCH IN CHINA
 
REDWOOD SHORES - Business software maker Oracle Corp. says it's opening its second Chinese research and development center.

The latest is in Beijing, just 16 months after the company put its first Chinese R&D operation on line in Shenzhen.

With two research and development centers in China, Oracle claims it will be able to work more closely with local partners to develop products to address the unique needs of companies in China.

AT&T CALIFORNIA INVESTMENT TOPS $750 MILLION
 
SAN FRANCISCO - AT&T has said that its investment in the Golden State has exceeded $750 million since 2001 alone.
 
In 2001, the California Public Utilities Commission indicated that the existing wholesale rates charged by SBC and Verizon were an impediment to local competition. The Commission subsequently took swift action ordering lower interim wholesale rates enabling AT&T and other competitive carriers to enter the local phone market.

AT&T continues to invest in its telecom infrastructure in California, including in network facilities that provide advanced telecommunications services to both businesses and consumers across the state.

AT&T and other competitive carriers rely on wholesale rates to access parts of the local public network to provide local service in the same way that SBC, Verizon and the other Bell companies provide long distance service by relying on other carriers', like AT&T's, long distance network.

"California represents the largest phone market in the U.S. and its importance to AT&T cannot be overstated," said Ken McNeely, President, AT&T California. "Our $750 million investment in the state is testament to our commitment to provide businesses and consumers with choice and new services and to support the communities where we live and work. We believe the investments made by AT&T and those being made by the competitive telephone industry are important to the state as it continues its goal of regaining our economic health."

AT&T currently provides local phone service in 15 states, serving more than 3.5 million residential customers and has plans to be testing or actively marketing its service in 35 states by year end.

With approximately $37 billion of revenue, the company has about 40 million residential customers and 4 million business customers, who depend on AT&T for high-quality communications.
 
CHINA TO SURPASS US AS WORLD PC MARKET, SAYS INTEL

HONG KONG - Intel Corp., the world's biggest computer chip maker, expects the fast-growing China market to surpass the US as world's the top consumer of PCs by 2010, according to the company's Asia-Pacific chief.
 
China became Intel's number two market last year, trailing only the US in terms of sales.
"For PCs, China is now easily number two," John Antone, general manager for Intel's Asia Pacific region, told Reuters in a phone interview. "We expect China to continue to grow to the point where it's equal or larger than the US as a consumption market by 2010."
He said China's PC consumption was now about half the US level but "significantly" higher than in Japan.
 
Antone made his remarks as Intel posted better-than-expected third-quarter results, including a near 150% jump in profit from a year earlier to $1.7 billion and 20% growth in revenue to $7.8 billion.

The Asia Pacific region, excluding Japan, was a major growth driver, with regional sales accounting for 42% of Intel's total compared with 41% in the previous quarter and 38% a year earlier.

Including Japan, Asia accounts for 51%of Intel's sales. Antone said he expects that share to continue to grow, driven primarily by markets outside Japan.
 
"It's now a little bit above the midpoint and will probably continue to grow," he said of Asia's share of sales. "As that percentage goes up, sequential increases will likely slow down because it's gotten to be such a big part of our revenue.

"Emerging market - the biggest of which is China - growth relative to mature markets is going to continue to be faster."

In a nod to China's growing importance to the company, Intel said in August it would build a $375 million chip test and assembly plant in the interior Chinese city of Chengdu - the company's first such new plant since it announced plans to upgrade its Shanghai facility in 2001.
 
Intel has invested $500 million in the Shanghai plant, where it performs test and assembly work for flash memory chips, most commonly associated with mobile phones.

Antone said construction of the first $200 million phase of the Chengdu plant will begin early next year, with a focus on logic products commonly associated with the processors at the heart of personal computers.
 
"The start of construction is still a few months off," he said. "The scheduled opening would be the end of 2005."

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