"The initial Itanium product has had mixed results," said Nathan Brookwood, a microprocessor analyst at Insight 64. "McKinley needs to be a barnburner."
Itanium's acceptance has been slow because the chip hit shelves late and still hasn't proven itself, analysts said. If Barrett can't win more sales with McKinley, they say it would be a blow to his plans to increase sales outside of PCs.
He'll have fresh competition. Advanced Micro has added low-end server chips and plans more powerful products later this year.
Barrett can't afford to fail. He was paid US$3.36 million in salary and bonus in 2000, and received options to buy stock worth US$19.5 million if the shares climb 10 percent a year over 10 years.
Those options are now worthless.
Investors are still worried that Intel is too dependent on the PC market. After increasing at an average 16.7 percent a year, PC sales fell last year for the first time in more than 15 years, and shareholders said sales may never resume that kind of growth.
"It's a pretty mature market all of the sudden," said Scott Lawson, an analyst at Banc of America Capital Management, which owns Intel shares and manages US$280 billion. "How do you keep growing when the market isn't growing that fast?"
Many investors said they aren't panicking yet. Intel is coming out of last year's doldrums in better shape than in the last slowdown, they said, a reason to stand behind Barrett.
"We own the stock through thick and thin," BB&T's Luke said. "Look at the performance over the past year, in a slow market and in a tech disaster market. They just continue to lead."
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