The recession in the computer industry hit us all very hard. Intense
price competition and reduced demand combined to have a terrible
effect on revenues, forcing many of our companies to lay off workers
and cut back on nonessential expenses. Unfortunately for In-Stat/MDR,
some of our customers regarded this newsletter and our annual Forums
as nonessential expenses.
During this same period, however, microprocessor vendors continued
to design new chips, software companies continued to write new operating
systems and applications, and OEMs continued to create new product
categories requiring ever more sophisticated processors. Those of
you who have been reading Microprocessor Report over the
past three years have seen an unprecedented variety of new microprocessor
architectures and implementations.
In the past 36 months, Microprocessor Report has covered
more than 100 new microprocessors (not counting new speed grades)
representing more than 80 distinct processor architectures. Most
of these architectures also received their first detailed public
disclosures in these pages. We've also published dozens of other
articles explaining technologies and trends that will influence
the development of future microprocessors, systems, and applications.
If you design microprocessors or microprocessor-based systems,
this newsletter is not optional. Recession or no, this industry
grows faster every year, and Microprocessor Report is the
only comprehensive, objective source of information about all of
the industry's new developments. If you don't have your own subscription,
you should.
Microprocessor Forum and Embedded Processor Forum are also unique
in this business. At MPF2003 this October, we'll host presentations
describing 20 new processors, cores, and architectures. If you're
not there, you'll miss out on these presentations and the chance
to discuss them with your peers. Instead of knowing, that week,
which of these announcements matter to your company, you may need
months to gather the information you require to proceed with your
product-development programs. If you weren't planning to attend,
you should.
It may seem selfish of me to focus on our company, but this is
the company I know best. Other conferences and publishers, however,
have also suffered because of spending cutbacks. We've seen shows
canceled or combined and other companies like ours shut down or
sold off because they couldn't survive the downturn. We're pleased
that we have the support of our parent company, Reed Business Information,
and that we haven't been required to shut down any of our products
or services. Still, we have to show RBI that we can recover along
with the rest of the semiconductor industry.
So it's time for all of us to loosen the purse strings on our
research and training budgets, authorize more travel to important
industry events, and catch up on all the good work that's been taking
place in this business since the recession began. Believe that we
will see a return to strong growth in the semiconductor industry,
and we will. Don't expect 40% growth rates—don't even expect
20% next year—but we can and will resume growing faster than
the rest of the world and national economies.
Semiconductors, and especially microprocessors, have a long way
to go before they realize their full potential for improving our
daily lives and industrial productivity. As we find new ways to
benefit from intelligent devices and improved communications networks,
we'll need ever more specialized chips. It's our job here at In-Stat/MDR
to explain this progress, and we look forward to doing this work
for you.
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