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I hope it's the hardware side of the company waking up that the software and "solutions" side of the company is a gangrenous fifth limb. Things like trying to

I hope it's the hardware side of the company waking up that the software and "solutions" side of the company is a gangrenous fifth limb. Things like trying to start an app store when they didn't have content (e.g. Steam) or a platform (Google, Apple, Microsoft), trying to pivot that abomination into a media store after Netflix already won and the studios are all trying to start their own, trying for way too long to deliver solutions of putting parts in verticals (e.g. tablets, micros) where they are at best only competitive on one of price, power, or performance and immediately face-planting, but limping along seemingly oblivious to why any of these projects fail. The mention of IoT though makes me think this isn't the case. Definitely part of the brain-dead trendy "solutions" thinking. I don't think you're going to compete with commodity cheap micros with the best IP or the best process size... price is king. There are too many layers at Intel, and that leaves too many of those layers too well insulated, able to believe it was the brand that won them their markets (not the economics: Wintel monopoly in personal computing history, having the best server and laptop parts currently), and that despite the economics of new products and "solutions", the brand will somehow convince people to buy in. Like, why do I ever see you on Television, Intel? Who is the audience for these ads, potential investors? Shouldn't they rather see higher dividends? People don't go to the mall and buy Intel chips, they go buy Macbooks and they use Instagram. Facebook and Apple buy your chips at a scale where it's all ROI, and you deliver that, so what are the ads for? This shit is why I left, and why always did the quicksale on the stock purchase plan. Intel needs to just keep making the best parts and leave it to the market to conjure up asinine things to do with them. Kill all the product lines where there's no road to being #1 ROI within 10 years, keep those in the lab.

wrong_variable 10y ago
Thanks for sharing and providing that wonderful insight ! I agree with all your points - the last time I though about Intel as a brand was in 2002 while wanting to build my own PC ( a very small market of geeks at that ) What particular thing would you say that makes it difficult for them to built good software as compared to amazon ? Intel seems to have a bottomless pit when it comes to money. thanks again !
emp_zealoth 10y ago
>There are too many layers at Intel, and that leaves too many of those layers too well insulated, able to believe it was the brand that won them their markets (not the economics: Wintel monopoly in personal computing history, having the best server and laptop parts currently), and that despite the economics of new products and "solutions", the brand will somehow convince people to buy in. Well, as a gamer, intel (and nvidia) are just the best. I had AMD Athlon and it was an amazing processor. The modern ones just do not compare to Intel ones. AMD also pulled riddiculous shit when they stopped releasing drivers for linux on 2 or 3 years old GPU's - therefore they can go fuck themselves. Ive got 4790K and it is just great, runs cool (just a decent upsized aftermarket radiator for ~30$ - no water!), doesn't abuse my fans, will probably last me 5 or 6 years performance wise For a bulk buyer of crappy throwaway corporate laptops, the AMD might have some appeal...
- lotyrin 10y ago
  Exactly, even if gamers were a big market, they follow the ROI too. Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is, they sell technical things to technical people but mostly to industry.
  - detaro 10y ago
    > Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is They have a surprising amount of advertising at gaming events which seemingly tries to do exactly that. Even though they are more-or-less the only option. (although AMD was (maybe still is? I'm not following that to closely) better at integrated graphics solutions which were interesting for low-end gaming, most gaming profit is probably near the high-end) Maybe to promote PC gaming in general, over other activities and specifically consoles?
    - lotyrin 10y ago
      I can't really figure it out. It's pretty mindboggling.
  - toyg 10y ago
makomk 10y ago
I'd still like to know whose idea it was to try and compete in the Internet of Things market by pitting a buggy warmed-over 486 (the Quark) against ARM's best, most modern chip designs. Sure, Intel got a bunch of headlines in the tech press about their new IoT solution, but the technical details just didn't add up. The performance and power figures were dire, it couldn't run existing x86 code, it looked like a bear to integrate into anything, it just made no sense.
- petra 10y ago
  Intel's latest Quark has gotten to 1.5ua sleep current with sram retention. That's not the best ,but that's good enough for many applications. And it's using 22nm so it may be the cost leader, by far. And that's mostly what counts in embedded.

wrong_variable 10y ago

Thanks for sharing and providing that wonderful insight ! I agree with all your points - the last time I though about Intel as a brand was in 2002 while wanting to build my own PC ( a very small market of geeks at that ) What particular thing would you say that makes it difficult for them to built good software as compared to amazon ? Intel seems to have a bottomless pit when it comes to money. thanks again !

emp_zealoth 10y ago

>There are too many layers at Intel, and that leaves too many of those layers too well insulated, able to believe it was the brand that won them their markets (not the economics: Wintel monopoly in personal computing history, having the best server and laptop parts currently), and that despite the economics of new products and "solutions", the brand will somehow convince people to buy in. Well, as a gamer, intel (and nvidia) are just the best. I had AMD Athlon and it was an amazing processor. The modern ones just do not compare to Intel ones. AMD also pulled riddiculous shit when they stopped releasing drivers for linux on 2 or 3 years old GPU's - therefore they can go fuck themselves. Ive got 4790K and it is just great, runs cool (just a decent upsized aftermarket radiator for ~30$ - no water!), doesn't abuse my fans, will probably last me 5 or 6 years performance wise For a bulk buyer of crappy throwaway corporate laptops, the AMD might have some appeal...

lotyrin 10y ago
Exactly, even if gamers were a big market, they follow the ROI too. Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is, they sell technical things to technical people but mostly to industry.
- detaro 10y ago
  > Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is They have a surprising amount of advertising at gaming events which seemingly tries to do exactly that. Even though they are more-or-less the only option. (although AMD was (maybe still is? I'm not following that to closely) better at integrated graphics solutions which were interesting for low-end gaming, most gaming profit is probably near the high-end) Maybe to promote PC gaming in general, over other activities and specifically consoles?
  - lotyrin 10y ago
    I can't really figure it out. It's pretty mindboggling.
- toyg 10y ago

makomk 10y ago

I'd still like to know whose idea it was to try and compete in the Internet of Things market by pitting a buggy warmed-over 486 (the Quark) against ARM's best, most modern chip designs. Sure, Intel got a bunch of headlines in the tech press about their new IoT solution, but the technical details just didn't add up. The performance and power figures were dire, it couldn't run existing x86 code, it looked like a bear to integrate into anything, it just made no sense.

petra 10y ago
Intel's latest Quark has gotten to 1.5ua sleep current with sram retention. That's not the best ,but that's good enough for many applications. And it's using 22nm so it may be the cost leader, by far. And that's mostly what counts in embedded.