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Last week, as Intel Corp. outlined plans to ride its P6 chip into the heart of the enterprise computing market, the company seemed headed for an inevitable collision with the industry's major hardware vendors.
At the heart of the matter is an aggressive Intel business model that has begun to put the company in direct competition with some of its biggest customers.
Some top-tier vendors--led by a vocal Compaq Computer Corp.--fear Intel will have too much control over so many facets of making PC hardware that it will leave little room for innovation or moneymaking.
"The fundamental issue [for hardware vendors vs. Intel] is who gets control over manufacturing," said Dean McCarron, an analyst at Mercury Research, Inc. in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Some industry observers worry that a possible outcome of this struggle is that Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel will become as dominant in all facets of the PC hardware industry as Microsoft Corp. is in the software industry.
For users, however, the long-term outcome will be a positive...