7 ms·

Intel is laying off a major portion of its wearables group

110 points by sharmi 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mikestew 10y ago
Intel took it a step further and shut down the Peak’s software support (including cloud storage), effective by year’s end. And thus the reason I stick to companies like Garmin for my "wearables". If Garmin up and pulls out of the wearables market, then the market is well and truly screwed and my choice won't make any difference. But a company like Intel or Microsoft can just up and go "well, that hobby project didn't work out. Back to our core business. Oh, and pull the servers down." and you the consumer are left holding the bag.
- ghaff 10y ago
  Intel in particular has a pretty long record of making itself more directly relevant to consumers and just as long a history of mostly not having much success in that regard. (See ViiV/Digital Home for example.) In general, though, wearables probably have to be considered a relatively underwhelming market so far. Yes, there are various fitness bands and smart watches that are mostly sold for fitness-related reasons and... Well, pretty much just fitness bands. It's probably related to a lack of compelling capabilities in unobtrusive products that "just work" and don't require a lot of ongoing care and feeding.
- throwanem 10y ago
  > you the consumer are left holding the bag Not in this case. They're issuing MSRP refunds, no questions asked, in exchange for returns whose shipping they also cover. Full disclosure: I've just shipped back my own Basis Carbon Steel - a device not even implicated in the overheating issue, but one for which they're still accepting returns and providing refunds. I paid ~$150 for it a few years back; they've said they'll be sending me a $234 check. Obviously, since I haven't yet received the check, I don't yet know with certainty that they'll live up to that claim, but they've given me no reason to doubt that they will. Overall I'm very favorably impressed with the way they're handling the issue.
  - ikeboy 10y ago
    They will. I made nearly $10k buying up used (and new) ones on eBay and other places and sending them back. I've gotten paid for everything so far. I also learned about the recall around June, around two months before it started hitting the media, which gave me an advantage. Although my most recent purchase was within the last month, there's still a small opportunity. Also someone else seems to have cornered the eBay market, items that go on sale now tend to be bought relatively quickly (looking at sold items) before I see them. I probably could have done better by setting up instant alerts and sniping auctions, but I'm pretty happy with what I did get for the level of effort.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      Nice! Next time I'll have to think of that first.
      - bertiewhykovich 10y ago
        Tell the sellers that their product is worth more in returns than on eBay instead of taking advantage of them.
        reitanqild 10y ago
        A fair risk they will just plan to do it themselves, then forget about it or rather postpone it because they can't find return address or something and then lose everything. I do that kind of thing for friends but not for everyone.
        throwanem 10y ago
        I'd like to be in a position where such altruism had no downside, but I have one family member who requires round-the-clock care and another being laid off at the end of the year with no meaningful prospect of reemployment. Picking up ten thousand dollars that someone else is leaving on the table would do them a great deal of good right now.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
arcanus 10y ago
With moore's law slowing/dying out, hard to blame intel for desperately trying to find new revenue streams.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Latest CPU leaks mention 10nm cpus about to land. They managed to keep Moore's law afloat surprisingly longer than expected.
theparanoid 10y ago
I'm happy to be a /former/ Intel employee. Staying for layoffs sucks.
- jakub_g 10y ago
  > Staying for layoffs sucks. Depends on the country. I've heard about people who made little fortunes being laid off. The most lucky one got laid off twice after long tenures at two different companies (due to the companies closing sites in the country or something like that).
  - kilroy123 10y ago
    True. It's not uncommon to get laid off, receive a few months pay. Find and start a new job weeks or a month later. Though not everyone is so fourtanate.
throwanem 10y ago
I see the article mentions the Basis recall, but I want to expand on that here for those who might look first or only at the comments. For those who don't already know: Because the Basis Peak developed a nasty habit of overheating to the point of second-degree burns, Intel has recalled all Basis devices - not just the Peak, but prior versions as well. If you currently own a Basis device or devices, visit https://www.mybasis.com/safety/ https://www.mybasis.com/safety/ in order to find out how to send your recalled device or devices back to Intel, in exchange for a full MSRP refund. (This is no small consideration! In my case, I bought a Basis Carbon Steel several years ago for about $150. In exchange for shipping it back to Intel, to whom it is currently en route, I'm told I will receive a check for $234.) Be advised also that the Basis data services will be shut down at the end of this year. If you have fitness data in those services which you want to retrieve, you must do so before January 1, 2017, or it will no longer be recoverable. Also, and for the same reason, no Basis devices will be able to sync from that date, which will make them essentially unusable even if they would otherwise be. It's sort of a shame to see a good product go down in flames like this. On the other hand, the way Intel's handling it is extremely impressive, and I'm very glad to see it - we can but hope, however forlornly, that this is the first example of a new and much more customer-friendly style of handling IoT deprecations.
tootie 10y ago
Tech companies should just not try to make consumer products. Build your chips and your displays and your compilers and OSes, but please let retail businesses figure out what customers might want before you start building stuff just because you can. Apple is just about the only company that has managed to get away with doing both.
- GuiA 10y ago
  Asus, Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, MSI, IBM, Sony... all these companies and many others sell components to other companies, but also made consumer products that many people love. I don't quite get your logic.
makomk 10y ago
Intel's wearables push always seemed more like a PR stunt than an actual, thought-through business tactic. They put a great deal of effort into stuff like Arduino support and sponsoring BMX championships, a TV show (America's Greatest Makers), conceptual clothing lines, etc but apparently people who actually wanted to use their hardware in products had trouble getting support or chips and the specs just didn't seem to stand up (when they were available at all).
- mattthebaker 10y ago
  It was, and to appease investors that they are doing something about new markets after missing mobile. No one in their right mind would choose Intel as the platform for a wearable. The microcontroller companies: ST, NXP, Freescale, etc have been deeply embedded there for decades.
y_u_no_rust 10y ago
I will be happy once this wearable meme dies out
ChuckMcM 10y ago
This is too bad, and a bit understandable. Intel is in a really odd place at the moment. It is the 800lb gorilla in the CPU space who knows that the manufacturer of gorilla food is currently unable to produce enough food to feed it (the PC market). More systems running windowed operating systems that people use will on a day to day basis will ship with ARM chips this year. That is a huge shift. And while Intel is still king of the server shipments there are people who want to be there too (Power and ARM). Two things contributed to that, the first was that the smartphone became the "PC" for the masses, the second was that Linux is instruction set agnostic in the data center. Intel really really needs a market they can dominate that consumes lots and lots of chips. IoT is one bet, Wearables (apparently was) one bet. The scary thing for Intel is that if they don't have enough demand to keep their billion dollar fabs pumping, they start burning cash. Not clear what the strategy there is. Look at IBM which sold off their chip capability to Global Foundry. Once you have over capacity, a chip fab rapidly becomes a huge liability. That said, the world could probably use a state of the art open access chip house that wasn't in Asia or controlled by the Chinese. Not sure that Intel could go there given their company history and organization. Digression: One of the uniquely nice things about Sun was that since their fiscal calendar ended on June 30th, when they axed major projects the layoffs came in the spring rather than right before New Years. It always sucks to be laid off but there are worse and better times to do so.
- rsp1984 10y ago
  Intel really really needs a market they can dominate that consumes lots and lots of chips. IoT is one bet, Wearables (apparently was) one bet. Yes. And Computer Vision applications will likely be that market. There were big algorithmic break-throughs in the last decade and things are now mature and robust enough to be finally useful. Plus some immediate obvious customers are starting to show up: autonomous cars, AR/VR, drones. Intel has acquired companies in the space for quite a while now (announced and un-announced deals) and will likely continue to do so. Trying to be an important player in this space is the right strategy IMO.
  - mattthebaker 10y ago
    If that market does play out and grow as much as predicted, Nvidia will be the company most likely to give Intel a run for their money.
chenster 10y ago
I paid the original Basis B1 for $199. Is the original Basis B1 covered in the recall? The notice says "... Service Shutdown Information We are shutting down service ... offering refunds for all Peak and B1 devices and accessories. ..." So sounds like Intel is recalling ALL Basis device, not just Peak. However, B1 is not mentioned anywhere else on the page besides Peak.
- evinr 10y ago
  Yes it is
rasz_pl 10y ago
Who could of predicted 1 Watt x86 booting in real segmented mode with 300Hz gpios is not the way to go in wearables?!?!
- contras1970 10y ago
  Who could have! Who could have!
sickbeard 10y ago
Ever since the old guard missed the mobile wave, they don't seem to want to take any change on the "next-big-thing". If apple goes into something, they all jump right in, business case or not

110 points by sharmi 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Intel took it a step further and shut down the Peak’s software support (including cloud storage), effective by year’s end. And thus the reason I stick to companies like Garmin for my "wearables". If Garmin up and pulls out of the wearables market, then the market is well and truly screwed and my choice won't make any difference. But a company like Intel or Microsoft can just up and go "well, that hobby project didn't work out. Back to our core business. Oh, and pull the servers down." and you the consumer are left holding the bag.

ghaff 10y ago
Intel in particular has a pretty long record of making itself more directly relevant to consumers and just as long a history of mostly not having much success in that regard. (See ViiV/Digital Home for example.) In general, though, wearables probably have to be considered a relatively underwhelming market so far. Yes, there are various fitness bands and smart watches that are mostly sold for fitness-related reasons and... Well, pretty much just fitness bands. It's probably related to a lack of compelling capabilities in unobtrusive products that "just work" and don't require a lot of ongoing care and feeding.
throwanem 10y ago
> you the consumer are left holding the bag Not in this case. They're issuing MSRP refunds, no questions asked, in exchange for returns whose shipping they also cover. Full disclosure: I've just shipped back my own Basis Carbon Steel - a device not even implicated in the overheating issue, but one for which they're still accepting returns and providing refunds. I paid ~$150 for it a few years back; they've said they'll be sending me a $234 check. Obviously, since I haven't yet received the check, I don't yet know with certainty that they'll live up to that claim, but they've given me no reason to doubt that they will. Overall I'm very favorably impressed with the way they're handling the issue.
- ikeboy 10y ago
  They will. I made nearly $10k buying up used (and new) ones on eBay and other places and sending them back. I've gotten paid for everything so far. I also learned about the recall around June, around two months before it started hitting the media, which gave me an advantage. Although my most recent purchase was within the last month, there's still a small opportunity. Also someone else seems to have cornered the eBay market, items that go on sale now tend to be bought relatively quickly (looking at sold items) before I see them. I probably could have done better by setting up instant alerts and sniping auctions, but I'm pretty happy with what I did get for the level of effort.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    Nice! Next time I'll have to think of that first.
    - bertiewhykovich 10y ago
      Tell the sellers that their product is worth more in returns than on eBay instead of taking advantage of them.
      - reitanqild 10y ago
        A fair risk they will just plan to do it themselves, then forget about it or rather postpone it because they can't find return address or something and then lose everything. I do that kind of thing for friends but not for everyone.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        I'd like to be in a position where such altruism had no downside, but I have one family member who requires round-the-clock care and another being laid off at the end of the year with no meaningful prospect of reemployment. Picking up ten thousand dollars that someone else is leaving on the table would do them a great deal of good right now.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

arcanus 10y ago

With moore's law slowing/dying out, hard to blame intel for desperately trying to find new revenue streams.

agumonkey 10y ago
Latest CPU leaks mention 10nm cpus about to land. They managed to keep Moore's law afloat surprisingly longer than expected.

theparanoid 10y ago

I'm happy to be a /former/ Intel employee. Staying for layoffs sucks.

jakub_g 10y ago
> Staying for layoffs sucks. Depends on the country. I've heard about people who made little fortunes being laid off. The most lucky one got laid off twice after long tenures at two different companies (due to the companies closing sites in the country or something like that).
- kilroy123 10y ago
  True. It's not uncommon to get laid off, receive a few months pay. Find and start a new job weeks or a month later. Though not everyone is so fourtanate.

throwanem 10y ago

I see the article mentions the Basis recall, but I want to expand on that here for those who might look first or only at the comments. For those who don't already know: Because the Basis Peak developed a nasty habit of overheating to the point of second-degree burns, Intel has recalled all Basis devices - not just the Peak, but prior versions as well. If you currently own a Basis device or devices, visit https://www.mybasis.com/safety/ https://www.mybasis.com/safety/ in order to find out how to send your recalled device or devices back to Intel, in exchange for a full MSRP refund. (This is no small consideration! In my case, I bought a Basis Carbon Steel several years ago for about $150. In exchange for shipping it back to Intel, to whom it is currently en route, I'm told I will receive a check for $234.) Be advised also that the Basis data services will be shut down at the end of this year. If you have fitness data in those services which you want to retrieve, you must do so before January 1, 2017, or it will no longer be recoverable. Also, and for the same reason, no Basis devices will be able to sync from that date, which will make them essentially unusable even if they would otherwise be. It's sort of a shame to see a good product go down in flames like this. On the other hand, the way Intel's handling it is extremely impressive, and I'm very glad to see it - we can but hope, however forlornly, that this is the first example of a new and much more customer-friendly style of handling IoT deprecations.

tootie 10y ago

Tech companies should just not try to make consumer products. Build your chips and your displays and your compilers and OSes, but please let retail businesses figure out what customers might want before you start building stuff just because you can. Apple is just about the only company that has managed to get away with doing both.

GuiA 10y ago
Asus, Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, MSI, IBM, Sony... all these companies and many others sell components to other companies, but also made consumer products that many people love. I don't quite get your logic.

makomk 10y ago

Intel's wearables push always seemed more like a PR stunt than an actual, thought-through business tactic. They put a great deal of effort into stuff like Arduino support and sponsoring BMX championships, a TV show (America's Greatest Makers), conceptual clothing lines, etc but apparently people who actually wanted to use their hardware in products had trouble getting support or chips and the specs just didn't seem to stand up (when they were available at all).

mattthebaker 10y ago
It was, and to appease investors that they are doing something about new markets after missing mobile. No one in their right mind would choose Intel as the platform for a wearable. The microcontroller companies: ST, NXP, Freescale, etc have been deeply embedded there for decades.

y_u_no_rust 10y ago

I will be happy once this wearable meme dies out

ChuckMcM 10y ago

This is too bad, and a bit understandable. Intel is in a really odd place at the moment. It is the 800lb gorilla in the CPU space who knows that the manufacturer of gorilla food is currently unable to produce enough food to feed it (the PC market). More systems running windowed operating systems that people use will on a day to day basis will ship with ARM chips this year. That is a huge shift. And while Intel is still king of the server shipments there are people who want to be there too (Power and ARM). Two things contributed to that, the first was that the smartphone became the "PC" for the masses, the second was that Linux is instruction set agnostic in the data center. Intel really really needs a market they can dominate that consumes lots and lots of chips. IoT is one bet, Wearables (apparently was) one bet. The scary thing for Intel is that if they don't have enough demand to keep their billion dollar fabs pumping, they start burning cash. Not clear what the strategy there is. Look at IBM which sold off their chip capability to Global Foundry. Once you have over capacity, a chip fab rapidly becomes a huge liability. That said, the world could probably use a state of the art open access chip house that wasn't in Asia or controlled by the Chinese. Not sure that Intel could go there given their company history and organization. Digression: One of the uniquely nice things about Sun was that since their fiscal calendar ended on June 30th, when they axed major projects the layoffs came in the spring rather than right before New Years. It always sucks to be laid off but there are worse and better times to do so.

rsp1984 10y ago
Intel really really needs a market they can dominate that consumes lots and lots of chips. IoT is one bet, Wearables (apparently was) one bet. Yes. And Computer Vision applications will likely be that market. There were big algorithmic break-throughs in the last decade and things are now mature and robust enough to be finally useful. Plus some immediate obvious customers are starting to show up: autonomous cars, AR/VR, drones. Intel has acquired companies in the space for quite a while now (announced and un-announced deals) and will likely continue to do so. Trying to be an important player in this space is the right strategy IMO.
- mattthebaker 10y ago
  If that market does play out and grow as much as predicted, Nvidia will be the company most likely to give Intel a run for their money.

chenster 10y ago

I paid the original Basis B1 for $199. Is the original Basis B1 covered in the recall? The notice says "... Service Shutdown Information We are shutting down service ... offering refunds for all Peak and B1 devices and accessories. ..." So sounds like Intel is recalling ALL Basis device, not just Peak. However, B1 is not mentioned anywhere else on the page besides Peak.

evinr 10y ago
Yes it is

rasz_pl 10y ago

Who could of predicted 1 Watt x86 booting in real segmented mode with 300Hz gpios is not the way to go in wearables?!?!

contras1970 10y ago
Who could have! Who could have!

sickbeard 10y ago

Ever since the old guard missed the mobile wave, they don't seem to want to take any change on the "next-big-thing". If apple goes into something, they all jump right in, business case or not