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I'm not sure what you expect here: for Intel to dominate a bunch of very different silicon-based product lines? They already dominate(d) CPUs and chipsets and

I'm not sure what you expect here: for Intel to dominate a bunch of very different silicon-based product lines? They already dominate(d) CPUs and chipsets and WiFi chips, what more do you want? Let's compare to Facebook: what do they dominate? The Facebook social network service, and I suppose Instagram, plus some other "support" stuff like Messenger. How about Ebay? Are they some kind of failure because they're a "one trick pony" with their auction site? Is Comcast a failure because all they have is cable TV and cable internet? I guess Toyota is a failure too because all they make is motor vehicles. I find your criticism frankly bizarre.

johnklos 4y ago
1) I wouldn't say they dominate the wifi chip market. They're not particularly power efficient, but they're often part of the package that one gets when one gets Intel chipsets. 2) "Dominating" in CPU chipsets is... Well, it's a silly metric, because it's included in their CPU business. It's not like they're providing CPU chipsets for competing CPUs. So yes, I'd expect one of the largest chipmakers on the planet to have SOME aptitude making products other than CPUs and their chipsets, wifi chips and ethernet chips. How about storage controllers? They had Xscale until they sold it. How about flash? They've made some good SSDs, but never differentiated themselves in any of speed, quality or performance. GPUs? We know how that has gone - even though they have years of experience with integrated GPUs, they're shipping drivers that are embarrassingly bad. Low power, portable SOCs? The Atom has horrible performance/watt, so much so that MIPS and PowerPC are still used significantly more often than x86 in set top boxes, NAT routers, and so on. Their attempts to make a chipset for cable modems gave us the infamous Intel Puma chipset that has been plagued with problems for years and that Intel still hasn't fixed, after knowing about those problems and releasing a whole new generation. I still stand by the one trick pony comparison, unless you can think of some business where Intel stands out.

johnklos 4y ago

1) I wouldn't say they dominate the wifi chip market. They're not particularly power efficient, but they're often part of the package that one gets when one gets Intel chipsets. 2) "Dominating" in CPU chipsets is... Well, it's a silly metric, because it's included in their CPU business. It's not like they're providing CPU chipsets for competing CPUs. So yes, I'd expect one of the largest chipmakers on the planet to have SOME aptitude making products other than CPUs and their chipsets, wifi chips and ethernet chips. How about storage controllers? They had Xscale until they sold it. How about flash? They've made some good SSDs, but never differentiated themselves in any of speed, quality or performance. GPUs? We know how that has gone - even though they have years of experience with integrated GPUs, they're shipping drivers that are embarrassingly bad. Low power, portable SOCs? The Atom has horrible performance/watt, so much so that MIPS and PowerPC are still used significantly more often than x86 in set top boxes, NAT routers, and so on. Their attempts to make a chipset for cable modems gave us the infamous Intel Puma chipset that has been plagued with problems for years and that Intel still hasn't fixed, after knowing about those problems and releasing a whole new generation. I still stand by the one trick pony comparison, unless you can think of some business where Intel stands out.