Intel's Vision: The Future Of CollaborationIntel's Vision: The Future Of Collaboration

Tell me if you've heard this before: Economy in crisis today; tomorrow looks bright; let me tell you why you should be excited about where technology is going. Intel CEO Paul Otellini sang this hymn on stage at Web 2.0 Summit this morning, painting a vision for the future of enterprise collaboration that was as engaging as it was elusive.

For instance, through an enterprise social network portal, employees can exchange information, hobbies, and expertise based on shared profiles. It was extremely slick, but it was just a prototype of what will be possible.

Otellini also brought up a demonstration that included a smartphone-like device that is able to detect where you are (in the case of the demo, a badly staged China backdrop), download a translator from the Web (for the demo, it was wired to a server sitting behind the couch), and translate Chinese characters into English and even display pictures of menu items at a restaurant so you know what an exotic food actually is. But again, it was just a prototype device.

It's always nice to get excited about the future, I suppose, and Intel, among all companies, spends gobs of money on research and development. Otellini said the company will dig itself "holes" on the order of $4B - $5B in investments on new technology, filling the hole with research, manufacturing, and product development. Those are big bets, but in the case of something like 45-nanosecond chips, it yields about $80B in return.

Otellini also shared his thoughts on mobile development, the iPhone, cloud computing, and more.