Anthropological research at Intel

Putting people first: Intel hiring more than 100 anthropologists and other social scientists - [MIT Technology Review] 経由。
MIT Technology Review: Intel's Hiring Spree
インテルはインドや中国などの新興市場で成長するため、大量のanthropologist（人類学者）など社会科学の研究者を雇用しており、その成果が出始めている。彼らは製品開発だけでなく、長期の戦略立案においても重要な役割を果たしている。

Why is Intel, the giant chip maker, in the process of hiring more than 100 anthropologists and other social scientists to work side by side with its engineers? While the success of this strategy will become clearer over the next 12 to 18 months, it's obvious Intel is betting that sales will rise and new markets will emerge because of this nonintuitive pairing.

Intel has already released several products shaped by anthropological research. In February 2005, it worked with a Chinese PC maker to release the China Home-Learning PC; and in October 2005 it launched the iCafe initiative in China, which involves a platform for improving how Internet caf? owners deploy and manage their technology. Intel has also repeatedly demonstrated early production versions of a Community PC, which is aimed at markets where infrastructure is not as well developed as in the West. That platform will be introduced first in India later this year. In all these new ventures, social scientists have had "a real impact," says Pat Gelsinger, a senior vice president at Intel.

Furthermore, Gelsinger emphasizes that the impact of these new scientists has been more than just in tactical product development: they've also played a key role in long-term strategic planning. Indeed, Intel viewed China and India as countries where people were simply too poor to buy its products -- until anthropologists showed them that extended families in Asia will invest in a PC if it's viewed as helping their children to succeed.

The rise of the anthropologists may come just in time for Intel. Its traditional Western markets are largely saturated, while many parts of the developing world use cell phones for e-mail and other forms of communication. And Intel's efforts to gain share in the cell-phone market have not been strong. Thus, developing new approaches to potentially huge markets like India and China may help Intel grow faster in the future.

#関連エントリー
The rise of ethnography at Intel：shiba blog