There are two companies today that hold the majority of control over where the PC is heading. AMD isn't one of them, VIA isn't one of them, and no, Apple isn't one of them either. The companies are Intel and Microsoft, and their influence goes further than you think.

Today we are going to talk about the Intel Developer Forum (IDF). For IDF, Intel brings together hardware and software developers to show them where Intel is guiding the PC platform. From 3D over the Internet to low-cost soft-modems, from 16-way Itanium servers to the 2GHz Pentium 4, Intel uses IDF to bring the industry together and shape the future of the PC.

In this article, we will talk about various technologies we saw at IDF, what we didn't see, some of the show floor gossip, and what we think are important and relevant announcements.

Intel held their first public Pentium 4 demonstration at IDF. They expect to ship at both 1.4 and 1.5GHz for starters in Q4, and they demonstrated a 2GHz Pentium 4 system that should come out next year. We covered the Pentium 4 in-depth in our "Pentium 4 Unveiled" article, so we won't go through the old details again. We did, however, learn some more about the Pentium 4's power, cooling and case needs.