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> But this is very intel: get psyched about a technology, dump billions into it for a few years, flake out Hit the nail on the head! I worked for Intel nearly
by y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
> But this is very intel: get psyched about a technology, dump billions into it for a few years, flake out
Hit the nail on the head! I worked for Intel nearly a decade ago. I was a full time employee for a few years. They saw Android and the Apple app store capturing mobile users and decided to dump $$$ into an app store for the PC (Intel AppUp). The effort lasted a few years before it crashed and burned HARD. During this time they also tried to spin up Meego/Moblin for mobile and tablet, then a partnership with Samsung to work on Tizen, and bought up McAffee.
The amount of money Intel flushes down the toilet with fruitless endeavors is sad, especially considering the number of people that end up jobless (like many of my good friends did) because of it.
- throwawa66 7y agoI noticed this recurring theme. Seems like that eventually all companies go down this path at some point if they become mega rich. At that point money alone doesn't matter as much as capturing new markets do so lots of money goes down the drain. It's a good thing for the companies that get acquired and get their paycheck. I see as rich people who buy expensive things and let them rot because they forgot they bought them or so.
- _jal 7y agoPublic markets demand growth. So boards demand managers who do Growthy Things. When it doesn't grow, you toss the old managers lots of money for their service, find new managers who promise you new Growthy Things, and repeat.
- eric-hu 7y agoSometimes bets like these turn out to be huge wins, like Microsoft going into the gaming platform space with the Xbox or Amazon building out cloud services. The Intel app store idea doesn't seem like such an idea to me, but I can see how the board could have been pushing for "outside the box" big bets.
- mikepurvis 7y agoProbably an intentional attempt to self-disrupt, innovator's dilemma and all.
- backupcavalry 7y agoI'd argue that Microsoft and Amazon's branches were at least tangential to what they were doing in the back-end and that they already have most of the required talents to do it right. I have no idea how Intel could work their way into running an app store beyond "we have tech and market dudes, good enough right?"
- sitkack 7y agoWith their new fabric/modular system, the modules are effectively "apps". Though possibly sold by app developers, you could install the Adobe module or the Autodesk module and it would have hardware/ram/storage tuned to those applications. It will start with DL and Graphics accelerators but then morph into application specific.
- eecc 7y agoNo no no, sorry but it’s a completely different story. Microsoft is a Software company and with the XBox they sought to expand from their business software market into the entertainment software. It’s still software and besides the hardware which wasn’t much different from a standardized gaming PC, they worked on building the software platform and developer accessories. Something they happen to be pretty decent at...
- BubRoss 7y agoInterestingly Meego was really great to use. Super fluid and simple while not hiding linux too far under the covers. If Intel bought Nokia there could easily be three mobile OS in current use.
- nl 7y agoInterestingly Windows Mobile was really great to use. Super fluid and simple while integrating well into the Windows ecosystem. If Microsoft bought Nokia there could easily be three mobile OS in current use. Oh wait.. they did. And there's not.
- BubRoss 7y agoI used them both and there was no comparison. Being snarky because you think it's clever doesn't change that. The design of the UI and the design of the apps was like the first time using a brand new system where everything has been thoroughly thought through. It used touch very well to be as basic and straightforward as possible.
- nl 7y agoI'm not really being snarky - it just seems like it. Lots of people really thought Windows Mobile was great (including here on HN). Meego was great too. It doesn't matter. The point is that it's unclear why Intel (a company that has failed at every consumer focused business they have ever tried) would have done better with Nokia than Microsoft did, given that MS has had considerable success in consumer markets, already had carrier relationships, had developer relationships etc etc).
- BubRoss 7y agoAnyone would have done better if they were left alone. The point is that they already had great technology. I'm not sure how this isn't sinking in, but you seem desperate to point out that Microsoft tanked Nokia, which is actually already common knowledge. A little less sarcasm and snark will probably leave room for absorbing what people are saying.
- xyzzy2020 7y ago100% agreed. We might have been on the same team. Don't forget Omnipath and Xeon Phi. Prediction: this new discrete graphics card as well.
- shaklee3 7y agoOmnipath went the way infiniband is going. Ethernet has caught up, and surpassed the speeds, so using proprietary technology with fewer features isn't that attractive anymore.
- sitkack 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabit_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terabit_Ethernet is faster than the main memory bandwidth on current generation processors.
- vardump 7y agoBut not faster than L3 cache bandwidth. Some cards can DMA to L3 cache. Granted, eventually it's flushed to main RAM, so might not help too much in the end.
- sitkack 7y agoCool. That means it both prevents nethammer and allows the cpu to check a signature/decrypt/type check as value stream over the network.
- porker 7y agoI sat through a Xeon Phi presentation at university, about how it would revolutionize the university's "supercomputer". I left shortly after; did Phi come to nothing?
- pinewurst 7y agoIt was too difficult to get decent performance from Xeon Phi for general use cases. A few apps could make it work e.g. PGS bought up all the old stock for a big geophysics system.
- npunt 7y agoThey started an app store? They're in entirely the wrong market position for such an endeavor, they don't own end user relationships or have any software platform to leverage, let alone software expertise. In fact would have likely suffered a strategic tax of wanting to favor their own processors. What a dead on the water idea. Definitely not the first time Intel has forgotten to stay in their lane.
- t0mas88 7y agoThey have huge contracts with all OEMs and make the drives for their chipsets. Planning to add that appstore to it as bloatware and having an installbase in the hundreds of millions quickly wasn't that crazy.
- jacobush 7y agoI thought they would succeed-ish enough for me to register as a developer for App-Up. Alas, they didn't.
- somesortofsystm 7y agoDevelopers: easily neglected by hardware manufacturers. Platform fails without them, though. Announce a platform, intending for it to fail? Big fish like Intel are masters at this now.
- 0xff00ffee 7y agoOh wow i totally forgot their investment in phones! I had a brief stint writing tech articles and was covering mobile around 2013.
- kortilla 7y agoTheir App Store wasn’t for phones. It was for PC.
- barkingcat 7y agoReferring to meego/moblin / tizen which were all mobile
- cpitman 7y agoMy first internship was with Intel in the early 2000's with the group that was designing Intel's Infiniband NICs. Between when I accepted the internship and started they already knew they were going to abandon that product development, and the engineering group was all getting moved to chipset development. I got to catalog discontinued hardware.
- eecc 7y agoI’m wondering, how much of that expertise eventually found its way in consumer stuff like thunderbolt and usbc?
- anthony_doan 7y agoJobless part suck but I think it's smart of them to try. It's like they're playing the law of large number. Keep on trying until they get a unicorn.
- kyancey 7y agoReminds me of how they dropped the Intel Galileo. Since then, I've never been willing to trust that they'll support their efforts.