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Cheers Intel. I won’t forget all those years that you re-sold us the same awful chips for extortionate prices. The shareholders have got what they deserve.
Basically this is the result of “upgradeitis”: a disease spread by toxic gaming community and developer companies that do not spend a cent on optimizing their software. I always wonder when a new game gets released and requires a fresh Intel chipset and expensive NVIDIA card. I would tolerate that if the gfx were on the appropriate level, but those often fail to reach even Crysis 1 levels with the only difference in level loading distance (which obviously requires more ram and new processor, but why it is not optional like in Minecraft?)
 
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yes yes yes. sure intel was king for a time. but a very long time it was.

i have a lot of respect for what intel was.

and it seems that not a lot of people are remembering the risky and gutsy decision of steve to go intel. which saved the company. apple, that is.

it never was a match made in heaven, however.
maybe it had something to do with apple resisting putting the "Intel Inside" sticker on macBooks. s/

apple silicon is now king.
the king is dead. long live the king.
 
Did I miss the headline where he won Apple's business back? Or where he beat Apple's chip tech? What a blowhard.
 


Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has retired following a challenging tenure marked by the company's struggles to compete against Apple and other major chipmakers.

pat-gelsinger-intel.jpg

Intel today announced that Gelsinger, who served as the company's CEO since early 2021, officially stepped down on December 1, 2024, concluding a 40-plus-year career at the company. Gelsinger's leadership began with bold aspirations, particularly in addressing the growing influence of Apple Silicon. Intel faced a significant challenge when Apple announced in 2020 that it would transition its Mac lineup from Intel processors to its own custom-designed chips, beginning with the M1, which outperform Intel's offerings. This decision signaled a substantial shift in the industry and a major blow to Intel's dominance.

Gelsinger rejoined Intel in 2021, replacing then-CEO Bob Swan, at a critical moment for the company. His tenure began with a striking statement at an all-hands meeting, where he described Apple as a "lifestyle company" and emphasized Intel's need to deliver superior products. He said, "We have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino can do. We have to be that good."

Apple's move to Apple Silicon was highly significant for the chip industry. The M1 chip, built on an architecture designed in-house by Apple, offered unparalleled performance-per-watt, reshaping consumer expectations for computing power and energy efficiency. Subsequent iterations, including the M2, M3, and M4 families of chips, further cemented Apple's lead over Intel. Under Gelsinger's leadership, Intel responded with marketing campaigns that sought to highlight some of the perceived shortcomings of Apple's Macs. Some of these campaigns included former Apple "I'm a Mac" commercial star Justin Long.

In an interview with Axios shortly after assuming his role as CEO, Gelsinger acknowledged Intel's "stumbles" in retaining Apple's business and stated his intent to "create a better chip" to win Apple back. He expressed a broader vision for Intel to become a foundry partner for companies like Apple, saying, "Apple is a customer, and I hope to make them a big foundry customer because today they're wholly dependent on Taiwan Semiconductor."

Despite Gelsinger's efforts, Intel subsequently faced significant challenges. For example, the company struggled with delays in its 18A manufacturing process, which was intended to be a key component of its competitive recovery. Apple and other major companies such as Qualcomm passed on the technology due to reliability issues. Meanwhile, Apple's partnership with TSMC has only further deepened.

Gelsinger's tenure also coincided with a period of rapid advancement in AI technology, where Intel also found itself at a disadvantage. Nvidia, whose GPUs are widely used in AI workloads, captured significant market share as demand for AI-related processing surged. Intel's Gaudi line of AI accelerators, intended to compete with Nvidia's offerings, failed to gain traction. Meanwhile, Apple's custom silicon chips include a dedicated Neural Engine for machine learning and AI operations.

Gelsinger sought to restore Intel's manufacturing competitiveness by spearheading ambitious plans to build new fabrication facilities, including a massive complex in Ohio, supported by funding from the CHIPS Act. However, these long-term investment efforts did little to address the immediate challenges facing the company.

Intel's revenue and market valuation declined significantly during Gelsinger's tenure. By 2024, the company's share price had fallen by nearly 50% for the year, while Nvidia and Apple continue to thrive. Analysts estimate Intel will record its first annual net loss since 1986. Intel's stock price today rose 5% following the news of Gelsinger's departure.

In his parting remarks, Gelsinger reflected on his career and the challenges he faced during his time as CEO, stating "Leading Intel has been the honor of my lifetime. I can look back with pride at all that we have accomplished together." His departure leaves Intel in a transitional phase, with interim co-CEOs David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus tasked with steering the company as it searches for a permanent successor.

Article Link: Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Retires Amid Company's Decline

Intel is fine as long as Apple still sticks to the 256GB in laptops.
 
Backwards compatibility makes true innovation much more difficult. Not making excuses for Intel. They haven’t been innovative for way too long.
 
Manufacturers would be wise to remove "Intel inside" stickers from PCs and laptops. It might increase sales.
 
With such a small market share, how can Apple silicon be a major blow to Intel?
If I remember right Apple accounted for about 10% of their total sales for a while which may have been anywhere from 2 - 7 billion.
 
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Intel's foray into discrete graphics cards did not help...I'd be surprised if they sold enough to pay for the R&D on the product packaging.

Ultimately no one wants Intel to fail (okay I'm sure someone out there does)...more competition is better.
 
Apple M1 came out in Nov 2020 but INTC began to diverge from AAPL in Apr 2020. Maybe some people had figured it out already.
Some folks figured it out the prior year when the news came out of Intel that Apple would not be booking an expected number of chips in the next year. Just the idea that a company could realistically leave Intel was the canary in the coal mine.
 
Brian Krzanich is an engineer. Look at what happened with Intel when he was CEO.

Pat Gelsinger is also an engineer.

Tim Cook has an MBA from Duke University.

Good points and I'll also add that Steve Jobs definitely didn't have an MBA but was also the farthest thing from an actual engineer.
 
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This is a company that had design flaws in their processors since the 8088.

They pressured companies to keep AMD (from the time before the Athlon) out of the market, as well as any others. This apparently happened again this year, as suddenly the number of AMD-based laptop computers has become a small number.

Intel will still be there for years to come, but at what cost?
 
Yeah, my experience is as a company becomes successful, it becomes more bureaucratic and less innovative eventually being eaten alive by smaller, more dynamic competition. The innovations start to come from without (mergers and aquisition) instead of within (R&D).
Hopefully Apple will keep innovating. Steve Jobs may have been an SOB, but he got a lot out of his people. I think Tim is a fairer leader, but will that come at the cost of exciting innovation? Time will tell.
 
That's a bit harsh.

Intel decided to avoid developing in-house competition to its x86/x64 legacy product line, which had served it so well for so long.

That is not unusual for a company with a successful product. They ride the horse for as long as possible.
If you refuse to take the lessons of The Innovator's Dilemma to heart EVEN AFTER your most famous CEO repeatedly insisted that his managers read it, then you kinda deserve everything you get and more.

What happened to Intel was not some sort of bizarre one in a billion lightning strike - it was exactly what was predicted to happen by multiple people, from Clayton Christensen to Andy Grove to Steve Jobs!
 
That's a bit harsh.

Intel decided to avoid developing in-house competition to its x86/x64 legacy product line, which had served it so well for so long.

That is not unusual for a company with a successful product. They ride the horse for as long as possible.

Intel has many products, of course. So in reality it can continue for awhile servicing the market with those products.

However, if it can't show real progress in up-market (and therefor high-profit margin) products then Intel could go the way of former glorious American companies like Xerox, DEC, etc.
Intel did try to develop a new CPU architecture, it was called Itanium and it was a huge failure.
 
I owned Intel for decades. No longer. I bought it at a split-adjusted $3/share, and saw it go to $80. Then a long, long slide. When it got down to the 40's I said to myself, "When it gets back to $50, I'm selling. When it got into the 30's, I said, "I'll sell it when it gets back to $40." Fortunately, it got back up to $43 and I sold it. Feeling pretty good about that decision. I made good money even at $43, having reinvested all the dividends over those 25 years.
 
Do not miss the nightmare known as Windows and Intel chips. I moved to Apple only around 2005 and my computer stress levels plummeted to virtually none.

Pride goeth before the fall.

I am Apple poor as they say (see my signature) and have no issues with any of those products.

An occasional burp in the Beta software is to be expected and get fixed.

Adobe and Intel are two of the computer world players I ditched many years ago and have no regrets for doing so.
 
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