A big part of their success was due to the WinTel duopoly and not to design or manufacturing excellence. The AMD Athlon and Opteron series were the first cracks in Intel's perceived design and manufacturing superiority.
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Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger Retires Amid Company's Decline
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The headline is a bit misleading. According to Bloomberg, Gelsinger was given the option to retire or be removed. Hardly a choice. I don't envy whoever replaces him.
They missed the boat both on mobile and more recently (and more importantly) AI. NVIDIA chips are in high demand.
Intel's miss on mobile was right up there with Microsoft's miss on phones.
Microsoft survived that blunder.
I don't know if Intel will survive.
Probably not in it's current form.
The foundry business was/is a money pit. They hit a brick wall at 14nm and never recovered. Perhaps had they hired Gelsinger 5 years earlier his plan would have worked and they would have moved on from the failed 10nm node more quickly. AMD, Qualcomm, NVIDIA, etc. all are fabless designers. Design is where the money is.
That said, dependency on TSMC is a strategic weakness for the US. The new CEO will be under intense pressure to spin off the foundry business so that the remaining Intel can focus on design. The trickier part will be managing the independent foundry business. It will need massive investment to succeed, and there are too many strings attached to the CHIPS Act money.
I think a lot of Apple's problem was also IBM's problem in the past with Apple and they relied to much on Apple to use their more premium products, along with getting in to late on other trends. IBM kind of had a downturn too, especially after all the console makers quit using their processors, and then they dipped out of consumer laptop business by selling to Lenovo. IBM now seems to do pretty well for themselves in the government sector, and servers. I imagine Intel could pivot in this direction but they need to get their act together first. They can't really call themselves the better premium choice when companies like AMD, Apple, nVidia, and now Qualcomm are beating them.
Hopefully AI was a wake up call. They are behind Microsoft and Google but can catch up. Intel got really complacent.
I remember back when Flash was a thing, Apple deliberately decided not to supported it, which ended up sounding the death knell for said standard.
Part of me wished that Apple could do the same for AI. Openly declare that they see it as little more than a passing fad, deliberately decide not to jump on said bandwagon, and watch the entire industry crash and burn in time. If only to prove the naysayers wrong.
Though personally, I don't really feel that Apple is behind, not least because Apple Intelligence remains integrated with Apple hardware on a system level, and I don't think users are going switch away from iOS just because some competing brand is offering a marginally better feature somewhere. AI will get there, Apple will be able to implement it in a manner which will not break the bank for them, while possibly driving a new wave of device upgrades.
Apple Intelligence is Right On Time
Apple is expected to announce a range of AI features at WWDC; the company is well placed to benefit from AI: they are not too late, but right on time.
stratechery.com
This article explains it better than I ever could, especially this line.
I am saying this because I know there will be people attempting to draw a parallel between Intel's current state and Apple being complacent, and well, I guess whether Apple is behind or not is really a matter of perspective. I will just say that simply because Apple isn't doing what you want them to do (like release a folding phone) doesn't mean they are not innovating, especially if they are not engaging in a market that only a few people want.
Apple could lose 2/3 of its value and still be worth 10 times Intel. So they don’t have quite the existential threat yet. Intel just stalled over the past decade. The stock has gone sideways. Meanwhile NVIDIA exploded and AMD, Qualcomm and even Texas Instruments have left them in the dust.I remember back when Flash was a thing, Apple deliberately decided not to supported it, which ended up sounding the death knell for said standard.
Part of me wished that Apple could do the same for AI. Openly declare that they see it as little more than a passing fad, deliberately decide not to jump on said bandwagon, and watch the entire industry crash and burn in time. If only to prove the naysayers wrong.
Though personally, I don't really feel that Apple is behind, not least because Apple Intelligence remains integrated with Apple hardware on a system level, and I don't think users are going switch away from iOS just because some competing brand is offering a marginally better feature somewhere. AI will get there, Apple will be able to implement it in a manner which will not break the bank for them, while possibly driving a new wave of device upgrades.
Apple Intelligence is Right On Time
Apple is expected to announce a range of AI features at WWDC; the company is well placed to benefit from AI: they are not too late, but right on time.
This article explains it better than I ever could, especially this line.
I am saying this because I know there will be people attempting to draw a parallel between Intel's current state and Apple being complacent, and well, I guess whether Apple is behind or not is really a matter of perspective. I will just say that simply because Apple isn't doing what you want them to do (like release a folding phone) doesn't mean they are not innovating, especially if they are not engaging in a market that only a few people want.
Intel 13th and 14th gen are suffering horrendous failure rates from a critical design flaw with those generations, laptop models included. The more powerful the chip in those generations the more likely it is to fail.
curious to hear what major innovation or tech Apple is ignoring in your opinion?
They're fully invested in AI, spatial computing, wearables, and their own (industry-leading) silicon. Home automation seems to be the next point of emphasis.
Where's the total lack of innovation you see that is "almost/already at that point" as Intel?
Because I don't see it.
I see mature product lines that may be boring, but I don't see Apple's competitors massively out-innovating them either on any front.
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Sad example of the innovators dilemma! Old, but still great book (highly recommended).
Intel was so successful that they never dared to compete with themselves, hence no innovation.
If you don't, competition will.
Also, the overhead at Intel was always unbelievable! As someone who got in there through an acquisition, it always astonished me how many resources they threw at something with so little outcome! And then there was Brian... oh wow. Such a sad story!
Intel was so successful that they never dared to compete with themselves, hence no innovation.
If you don't, competition will.
Also, the overhead at Intel was always unbelievable! As someone who got in there through an acquisition, it always astonished me how many resources they threw at something with so little outcome! And then there was Brian... oh wow. Such a sad story!
Did I say something about AMD? I am sure they are gonna be good. Not sure about NVIDIA since their sales model is very much like Intel, some basic differentiation probably won’t help them. NVIDIA was riding the wave during mining boom, and they have raised the prices for their cards during these days. But now mining is basically gone, crypto is all but fake investment for guys from 3rd world.
Intel’s problem has a lot to do with Apple! No one managed to make a laptop that can last whole day without charger. Apple made it thanks to new energy efficient chip and graphics. Only after M1 companies started producing something comparable but completely not there - Microsoft, Samsung, Dell.
AMD helped a lot since they have been offering sort of more affordable options for years, and since they have drastically improved their thermal and power designs, data centers started looking into their offerings
What the hell happened to Intel?!?
It was on top of the industry, until pretty much 2 years ago...
It was on top of the industry, until pretty much 2 years ago...
+1 for mentioning the Innovator's Dilemma
As the book explained, I think Intel became a prisoner of their best customers (Windows PC makers) who had no interest in anything other than Intel (Windows on ARM still isn't fully a thing).
Intel was unable and unwilling to allocate resources away from their big money-maker, which meant all other initiatives starved to death - both in terms of money and executive attention.
But that is actually entirely wrong considering the news at hand.
Gelsinger was the guy that tried to innovate. Do something different go for building out the Fab side instead of focusing their power on the higher margin lower investment business of just designing chips. They could have just done that and invested more there added with some more packaging tech they already had and compete with AMD/Qualcomm/...
Instead the idea was to keep trying at the chip design but mostly to keep financing but innovating and driving the other business where competition is much more sparse (TSMC and maybe Samsung).
So Intel did try to "innovate" or at least do things differently.
But (there is alwasy buts if things don't work out) they didn't rework the entire company culture (they are not a young company and don't work like one internally making them probably slower vs competition) and most importantly they didn't sell the story to financial markets (Partly due to bad history and partly because the markets didn't care for a bet that has such a long expensive money burning runway). Financial markets today don't care for what you do in 5 years they care about the next 1-2 years, however if Intel stock got the money injection to prop them up to half TSMC valuation they'd have a much easier time. High interest rates and virtually no goodwill from equity investors is a recipe for disaster if your bet relies on huge amounts of investments.
Ergo. It is not about failing to innovate. It is about failing to execute and not getting the financial capital need to execute any innovative plan. Their problem was never lack of innovation, they did a lot of R&D bought smaller companies left and right but their core products were EXECUTED badly and that is what broke their neck.
Innovation isn't a holy cow. Innovation can give you an edge and if you have none you will just stay in your lane. But with great execution you can stay in your lane and simply be the most profitable at it. With **** execution and a million great ideas and innovations you still will just be a broke company.
More like 5 years ago.
The explosion of mobile computing.
Apple Silicon, AMD Zen and Qualcomm Snapdragon.
Being stuck on 10nm for a decade. /s
10th thru 14th core generation mediocrity.
Executives stupidity.
Those are the big ones.
I respect that point of view, however, their complacency from the latter part of the last decade caught up to them. There was not much that could be done to make up for that, is what I was more referring to.
👍 I purchased some stock at $24 something, a few months ago. Hopefully, these new guys can bring things back. Competition is good for the consumer.
About a month ago, there was speculation about AMD buying Intel. https://www.tomsguide.com/tech/us-g...infusions-amd-merger-to-help-struggling-intel
It might make sense. There could be significant synergies as their product lines overlap. It would put all the x86 IP under a single umbrella. An x86 monopoly isn't the anticompetitive threat it used to be. A new administration likely friendlier to mergers is coming in. AMD might benefit from having access to the Intel foundries.
It might make sense. There could be significant synergies as their product lines overlap. It would put all the x86 IP under a single umbrella. An x86 monopoly isn't the anticompetitive threat it used to be. A new administration likely friendlier to mergers is coming in. AMD might benefit from having access to the Intel foundries.
I'll quite happily replace him if totally failing at my job means I get an 8-figure severance package. Sign me up!
"Apple aren't innovating" is the "what colour shall we paint the bikesheds?" of MacRumors. Its a comment from people who don't understand technology or the processes, strategies and timelines of R&D, but want to contribute to discussions about it.