Intel Corp chief executive Paul Otellini said it was too early to identify specific outcomes of the review, which already has begun, but the company would provide more detail in the third quarter. The review process will be completed within 90 days.

But we’re not going to take 90 days to take action, Otellini said at an analysts’ meeting in New York.

We will restructure, resize and repurpose Intel Corp for where we think the business is going, he said. Every part of Intel will be included in this. No stone will be left unturned or unlooked at.

The overhaul would go beyond just cutting jobs, Otellini said. Intel will analyze its entire operations, including its under-performing business units, he said. In addition to employee productivity in every area of the company, Intel will study very closely its costs per unit currently and for the next few years.

I suspect there will be a long tail association with our actions here that will go out into 2007, Otellini said.

Intel’s objective is to adjust to the business realities of today and tomorrow, he said. We see a much tougher 2006 looking at us from a market perspective than we thought a few short months ago.

Otellini said the Santa Clara, California-based company expects revenue this year to drop about 3% from last year, to $37.7bn.

In the broader global microprocessor market, of which Intel drives more than 80%, Intel projects a slowdown this year, from 12% to 13% growth during the past few years to a number probably in the high single digits this year, Otellini said.

Intel also faces fiercer competition as its smaller microprocessor rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc consistently gains market share. AMD also is suing Intel for allegedly bullying suppliers to buy exclusively from Intel. AMD’s anti-trust suit likely won’t get to court until 2007, at the earliest, but it already is shaping up to become the largest electronic discovery case in the history of litigation.

Sunnyvale, California-based AMD declined to comment on Intel’s restructuring promises.

Intel has also been bedeviled with a microprocessor inventory glut at its customers and in the supply channel since the third quarter last year. That inventory build did lessen during the first quarter, but not to the extent Intel had expected, Otellini said.

Currently, the inventory build is about several million units, or about one- to two-week’s worth of the company’s usual product supply. This has helped drag down the company’s earnings for the past couple of quarters, and must be resolved during this quarter in order for Intel to return to seasonal growth rates, Otellini said.

Otellini said the glut should disappear, given it is all owned by either customers or unauthorized dealers and as Intel launches new, improved chips in the summer the product is becoming less valuable.

There is a high incentive to move it out this quarter, which leads us to have very high confidence it will burn off in Q2, he said.

Intel’s spending scale-back would combine with Intel’s most comprehensive, largest and most competitive product roll out in years, Otellini said. The company’s top-to-bottom refresh of its high-volume microprocessor lines began in January with the sale of its new Viiv consumer computing and Core-Duo notebook microprocessors.

The chips are built on Intel’s latest microarchitecture, called Core, which promises improved performance and reduced power consumption.

The microarchitecture, combined with new silicon manufacturing technologies, will not only change the competitive profile of Intel, but in many cases provide substantial excitement in terms of new products to possibly change that rate of growth we’re currently projecting, Otellini said.

He noted that the company’s combined silicon and microarchitectural changes would likely give it a double jump in market share. When you have the intersection of new silicon technologies and new microarchitectures, you change the game sufficiently to change the direction of the slope of marketshare in a radical fashion, Otellini said.

More updated Intel chips are slated for release in the second half of the year, mostly during the summer.

Intel recently announced it would reduce direct spending by $1bn in 2006. It also has taken its capital expenditure forecast down by $300m, but said it would not scale back on capacity at its chip-making and assembly facilities.