The price of stock in Intel fell after the company announced its earnings for the quarter had doubled. (That's not the real Intel symbol, by the way. It's something I found at a nifty Web company in Bristol, England.)

The reason: falling margins, rising inventories, and a prediction growth will slow in the second half.

Am I worried? No. Here's why.

Intel is not the whole chip industry.

Far from it. AMD has a big advantage in the near term because it continues to emphasize processor speed, while Intel now emphasizes features.

What's happening is that the current age of computing, dominated by Internet servers and powerful clients, is slowing its growth pace. There is no longer a big advantage to be had by buying a faster PC, a new processor. Instead, clients want storage, and maybe memory.

The next age, as I've said, will turn those home clients into servers, and will link them to literally dozens of devices on a wireless home network. People will be able to enhance their network by adding servers, not just by taking some out of service, and there will be a host of sensors to contend with, one-chip radios pulsing signals intermittantly.

This is the "feature set" Intel is focused on right now. Intel is doing a lot of work on wireless networks, on sensor networks, and on high-end applications that will help define the space.

The results of that work will not become apparent for some time, but in an age where intellectual property is increasingly important Intel can wait for that day.

Meanwhile, this change will create lots of new niches, for both designers (fabless chip companies) and those chip companies with fabs. The entire cellular infrastructure is going to be replaced and updated, at an increasing pace.

I'm not worried about Intel and I'm not worried about the chip sector. You shouldn't be, either.