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This is typical of Intel’s weak leadership and focus on short term profits instead of long term success. Just look at how they dragged their feet in transition
by brokencode 3y ago
This is typical of Intel’s weak leadership and focus on short term profits instead of long term success.
Just look at how they dragged their feet in transitioning to EUV because it was too expensive. This contributed to large delays in their 10 and 7 nm processes and a total loss in their process leadership.
And look at how many billions they poured into making a 5G modem only to give up and sell their IP to Apple.
Or how they dragged their feet in getting into mobile, then came out with Atom way too late to be successful in the market. They essentially gave the market to ARM.
Optane is another recent example. Cool technology, but if a product is not a smashing success right away, Intel throws in the towel.
There’s no real long term vision that I can see. No resilience to challenges or ability to solve truly difficult problems.
- qwytw 3y ago> They essentially gave the market to ARM They also had the best ARM chips for years with StrongARM/Xscale (using their own cores). Which they killed because obviously Atom was going to be much better and lock in everyone into x86...
- lttlrck 3y agoA 233Mhz StrongARM coprocessor plugged into an Acorn RISC PC around 1994 was astonishing to behold. 233Mhz! RiscOS flew! That could have been the future.
- tester756 3y ago>Optane is another recent example. Cool technology, but if a product is not a smashing success right away, Intel throws in the towel. Wasn't the actual (partial) reason that they didnt have a place to actually create them since Micron sold the fab? https://www.extremetech.com/computing/320932-micron-ends-3d-xpoint-development-will-sell-its-optane-fab https://www.extremetech.com/computing/320932-micron-ends-3d-...
- brokencode 3y agoFrom my understanding, the problem was that it wasn’t selling well enough and they decided to cut their losses. I’m not saying that Optane was a hill they needed to die on, but it’s just another example of their failed leadership and decision making. Look at how AMD is pursuing and largely succeeding with their vision of using chiplets in their CPUs and GPUs to enable significantly higher core counts at a lower cost. Or how Nvidia is innovating with massive AI supercomputers, ray tracing, and DLSS. What is Intel’s vision? In what way are they inventing the next generation of computing? It seems to me that their company objective is just to play catch up with AMD and Nvidia.
- dgacmu 3y ago> It seems to me that their company objective is just to play catch up with AMD and Nvidia. And TSMC. Intel really wants to win in both the fab game and the chip game.
- wtallis 3y agoI think it's fair to say that Optane was not merely "not a smashing success" but was completely uneconomical. Intel was essentially using Optane products as loss leaders to promote platform lock-in, and had limited uptake. Micron made only the smallest token attempt to bring 3D XPoint to market before bailing. Clearly neither partner saw a way forward to reduce the costs drastically to make it competitive as a high-volume product.
- sharts 3y ago> This is typical of Intel’s weak leadership and focus on short term profits instead of long term success. They're probably just doing what their shareholders want. Unfortunately, shareholders are shortsighted and risk-averse, contrary to the common rhetoric of being risk takers to justify eliteness. Surely leadership could be embroiled in lawsuits were they to actually care more about the company than their weak, whimsical, and often incompetent shareholders. Kind of a sad irony actually.