Otellini: PCs are the new time machines

"A microprocessor allows you to do things faster and faster," he said. "It also enables you to go back in time, as it allows you to collect digital data your businesses are built on and go back in time to study it."

In his keynote at Oracle OpenWorld, Otellini said that speed was key to the successful running of a business, and outlined plans for new multi-core chips due out over the next year that would be optimised for Oracle.

These included a new Xeon processor with two billion transistors that will go into production in the last quarter of this year. The chip is aimed at the high-end PC market, and a server version will arrive in the first quarter of 2009.

Otellini gave an example of how speed could reshape a business. Yahoo's 1.4 petabyte Oracle database takes 15 hours to load and process 800 million visitors to its web site. By using a faster processor the company could cut this to just over three hours, he said.

Otellini also announced a new initiative with Oracle to beef up the security of cloud computing. The new systems would make crossing between private and public clouds impossible without proper authorisation.