From: Glenn Petersen | 12/3/2023 6:39:30 AM | | | | Is This the End of ‘Intel Inside’?
Newcomers pose numerous challenges to decades of ‘Wintel’ chip dominance.
By Christopher Mims Wall Street Journal Dec. 1, 2023 9:00 pm ET
It might not look like it yet, but Intel is in a fight for its life.
The stakes for its employees and investors are high, and are likely to turn on some fierce battles for market share that will play out in 2024 and beyond.
For the everyday consumer, what’s at stake is mostly nostalgia. One day, the little “Intel Inside” sticker that’s been on PCs since 1991 could cease to exist.
Instead of an Intel chip, these computers could have processors from an array of manufacturers, principally Qualcomm, but also possibly Nvidia, AMD, and lesser-known companies like Santa Clara, Calif.-based Amlogic and Taiwan-based MediaTek . What’s happening now is a tipping point decades in the making. Ever since a little chip-design company called ARM built the mobile processor for Apple’s first Newton personal digital assistant, which came out in 1993, it’s been gaining steam, primarily in the mobile-phone business. By the time Intel sought to enter the mobile-processor business in 2011, it was too late.
Apple was the first company to bet that ARM-based processors—thought by many to be useful only in phones—could be the brains of even the most powerful desktop computers. This gave Apple a huge head start over Intel, and the rest of the industry, in designing chips that prioritized power-sipping performance in a world where that’s become the primary limiting factor in the performance of all devices, not just phones.
Now, Google, Qualcomm, Amazon, Apple and others can use ARM’s blueprints to custom-design the chips that power everything from phones and notebooks to cloud servers. These chips are then typically produced by Samsung or Taiwan-based TSMC, which focus on making chips for other companies.
The threats to Intel are so numerous that it’s worth summing them up: The Mac and Google’s Chromebooks are already eating the market share of Windows-based, Intel-powered devices. As for Windows-based devices, all signs point to their increasingly being based on non-Intel processors. Finally, Windows is likely to run on the cloud in the future, where it will also run on non-Intel chips.
Apple has moved almost entirely away from Intel’s chips, which it used for over a decade for all of its desktop and notebook computers. At the same time, its overall market share for desktops and notebooks has climbed from around 12% of devices in the U.S. in 2013 to nearly one in three today, according to Statcounter.
These days, it’s not just Apple moving away from Intel’s chips. Microsoft is accelerating its yearslong effort to make Windows run on ARM-based processors, so that the entire PC ecosystem isn’t doomed by Intel’s failure to keep up with Apple and TSMC. Google’s Chrome OS, which works with either Intel or ARM-based chips, is also an emerging threat to Microsoft.
This means the threat to Intel comes from a whole ecosystem of companies with deep pockets and sizable profit margins, each trying to take their piece of the company’s market share. In many ways, it really is Intel versus the world—and “the world” includes nearly every tech giant you can name.
It wasn’t always this way. For decades, Intel enjoyed PC market dominance with its ride-or-die partner, Microsoft, through their “Wintel” duopoly.
It’s ironic, then, that Microsoft is one of the companies leading the charge away from Intel’s chips.
This estrangement is taking several forms, which shows how seriously Microsoft is taking this shift away from Intel. Microsoft declined to comment for this column.
Microsoft is working to make Windows and the rest of its software accessible in the cloud, which can save money for customers because it lets them use computers that are much cheaper and simpler than conventional PCs. It also means that ARM-based devices can be put on workers’ desks in place of more powerful, Intel-powered ones. And the version of Windows that workers are accessing remotely, in the cloud, can run on ARM-based chips in the data center too.
In mid-November, Microsoft unveiled its first ARM-based custom chips. One of them, called Cobalt, is intended to live in data centers and could power such cloud-based Windows experiences. Qualcomm also has forthcoming ARM-based chips for notebook computers.
These efforts are getting a boost from Amazon, which recently unveiled a small cube-shaped PC-like device that can stream Windows and applications from the cloud—like Netflix, but for software instead of entertainment. It’s a repurposed Fire TV Cube streaming device, costs $200, and is powered by an ARM-based chip from Amlogic.
Qualcomm also has forthcoming ARM-based chips for notebook computers, but these are intended not merely to connect these devices to the cloud. Rather, they’ll directly replace Intel’s processors, handling heavy workloads within the device itself. At the same time, they’re intended to go head-to-head with Apple’s best chips. Key to their adoption: Microsoft is putting a huge amount of effort into making Windows run on these processors, while encouraging developers of apps to do the same.
I asked Dan Rogers, vice president of silicon performance at Intel, if all of this is keeping him up at night. He declined to comment on Intel’s past, but he did say that since Pat Gelsinger, who had spent the first 30 years of his career at Intel, returned to the company as CEO in 2021, “I believe we are unleashed and focused, and our drive in the PC has in a way never been more intense.”
Intel plans a new generation of chips in what Rogers calls the “thin and light” category of notebooks, where Apple has been beating the pants off Intel-powered Windows devices.
In terms of advanced chip-manufacturing technology, Intel has promised to catch up with its primary competitor, Taiwan-based TSMC, by 2025.
The consumer-electronics business is full of reversals, and Intel is still a strong competitor, so none of this is predestined.
Geopolitical factors, for one, have the potential to change the entire chip industry virtually overnight. Intel could suddenly become the only game in town for the most advanced kind of chip manufacturing, if American tech companies lose access to TSMC’s factories on account of China’s aggression toward Taiwan, says Patrick Moorhead, a former executive at Intel competitor AMD, and now head of tech analyst firm Moor Insights & Strategy.
When it comes to Intel, he adds, “Never count these guys out.”
For more WSJ Technology analysis, reviews, advice and headlines, sign up for our weekly newsletter.
Write to Christopher Mims at christopher.mims@wsj.com
Is This the End of ‘Intel Inside’? - WSJ |
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From: Sr K | 12/4/2023 3:05:10 PM | | | | Intel Wins U.S. Appeal to Overturn $2.2 Billion VLSI Patent Verdict
The ruling vacates the roughly $2.2 billion awarded to VLSI by a jury in 2021 By Will Feuer Dec. 4, 2023 1:08 pm ET
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A U.S. appeals court vacated a patent-infringement verdict won by VLSI Technology. PHOTO: DADO RUVIC/REUTERS A U.S. appeals court has sided with Intel, vacating a roughly $2.2 billion patent-infringement verdict won by VLSI Technology, which argues that some technology in Intel’s microprocessors infringe on VLSI’s patents.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a jury’s verdict that Intel infringed on one of VLSI’s patents and reversed the verdict that Intel infringed on another of the company’s patents. The Federal Circuit sent the case back for further proceedings to determine how much Intel owes in damages.
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From: Sr K | 5/8/2024 10:37:20 PM | | | | BUSINESS TELECOM
Intel Lowers Sales Outlook After China Chip Licenses Revoked
Chip maker says revenue likely below the midpoint of second-quarter range
By Asa Fitch Updated May 8, 2024 11:23 am ET
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Intel reaffirms full-year guidance that revenue and profits will grow. PHOTO: DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG NEWS Intel INTC -2.22% decrease; red down pointing triangle said its revenue for the current quarter would be lower than previously expected amid new restrictions on sales by chip makers to Huawei Technologies.
The Commerce Department revoked some licenses for exports to the Chinese telecom company, a spokesman said Wednesday, a move The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the Biden administration was considering.
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To: robert b furman who wrote (186805) | 6/27/2024 5:03:14 AM | From: FJB | | | THIS CRAP DESTROYED THE COMPANY IN LESS THAN TEN YEARS. CHECK OUT BOEING TOO...
intel.com
Intel Diversity and Inclusion Annual Report 2015 Leadership Perspective Last year, Intel set an ambitious goal to be the first high technology company to reach full representation of women and underrepresented minorities in our U.S. workforce by 2020. We committed $300M to support this goal and accelerate diversity and inclusion—not just at Intel, but across the technology industry at large. The scope of our efforts spans the entire value chain, from spending with diverse suppliers and diversifying our venture portfolio to better serving our markets and communities through innovative programs like Hack Harassment, which aims to combat online harassment.
Why Diversity and Inclusion Matter Intel is evolving, and diversity and inclusion are among the most important forces driving that evolution and reinvention. Our commitment to diversity comes from our conviction that reaching a critical mass of women and underrepresented minorities in our workforce brings ample benefits. These go far beyond the business benefits to Intel—which are many—to include the entire tech industry and our wider communities beyond.
Inclusion means ensuring that all employees are, and feel, free to bring their full selves to work, offer their true and unguarded perspectives, and find a welcoming and inviting place for those ideas. True change is made through both diversity and inclusion. Together, these concepts are transforming and defining our culture and how we all work together at Intel. |
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To: FJB who wrote (186884) | 6/27/2024 11:22:39 AM | From: robert b furman | | | Hi FJB,
TOTALLY AGREE! The same gobly gook destroyed GM and it went BK.
That lofty stuff is written by those who have been educated well beyond their level of intelligence.
Those who have never taken an entry level and then given it their all for advancement in a company that they contribute to, spew this barf. It is easy for the competition to outperform you when you build your team on this falsehood. The company that hires and trains the best candidates,regardless of their skin color,or many other traits other than drive, integrity, and intelligence is the company I want to invest in.
There is a solid history of GO WOKE, GO BROKE.
The world is simply competitive. If it is not in your business, it will be
A country that endorses such poor advice, will be surpassed by the country that embraces meritocracy. That is part of the headfake plan that socialism injects into a country you want to see fail!
The DEI spin is nice sounding BULL CHIT. It's philosophies has pretty much destroyed the public school's curriculums.
Any school that dumbs down the curriculum with such unfounded beliefs is not where my kids would go!
Bob |
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From: Elroy | 7/15/2024 9:03:43 AM | | | | Has Intel announced when they will report Q2 results? Usually they're one of the first to go, but I don't see any earnings release date announcement...... |
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From: Thomas M. | 9/1/2024 7:38:44 PM | | | | When the Mismanagerial Class Destroys Great Companies
by Marko Jukic
In 2005, Paul Otellini became the new CEO of Intel, America’s premier semiconductor designer and manufacturer. He was the first CEO of the company not to have a background in engineering. Sometime shortly thereafter, Otellini entered discussions with Steve Jobs on whether Intel would manufacture the chips needed for Apple’s secretive, potentially revolutionary new project: the iPhone. Ultimately, Otellini declined. He thought the initial costs would be too high and the resulting sales too low. Since then, Apple has sold 2.3 billion iPhones. Intel flatly missed out on the mobile computing revolution ushered in by Apple, which put Intel’s competitors in various domains—including companies like Samsung, TSMC, and most significantly Arm—squarely in the leading position that Intel once had.
The same year that Otellini took the reins at Intel, James McNerney became the new CEO of Boeing, America’s one and only manufacturer of large passenger airplanes and a key contractor to NASA and the Pentagon. Like Otellini, McNerney was an MBA—Master of Business Administration—not an engineer. Though he wasn’t the first non-engineer ever to lead the century-old company, he was the first without any previous experience in aerospace. Aiming to cut costs, McNerney determined that, rather than designing and building a whole new plane, the company would simply modify one of its key planes, the 737, to be the new and improved 737 MAX. Not long after entering service a decade later, two of these updated planes inexplicably crashed shortly after takeoff, killing a combined 346 people. The cause was a convoluted series of poor and ultimately fatal design choices that Boeing had not disclosed to pilots, in order to preserve the marketing fiction of a merely updated plane, rather than a new one, which would have required the, in hindsight, comparatively trivial burden of retraining pilots.
While Otellini and McNerney were taking charge, across the Pacific Ocean another chief executive was wrapping up his term. Nobuyuki Idei had become the CEO of Sony in 1999, becoming responsible for Japan’s most innovative consumer electronics and entertainment company. Three long, consecutive tenures by founding engineers had turned Sony from a radio repair shop amidst the ruins of post-war Japan into a global conglomerate that gave the world the Walkman, the CD, and the PlayStation, among many other state-of-the-art electronics products. Idei was the first CEO not to have a background in engineering. He decided to reorganize Sony to be “independent from past glory and the founders’ shadow,” adopting modern managerial techniques and structures. Since he left, Sony has not produced a single new transformative electronics product.
Since 2021, Intel’s revenue has crashed by a third. Since 2018, Boeing’s has fallen by a quarter. Sony’s revenue hasn’t meaningfully grown since 2008. It is easy to tell when a company stalls or stumbles. But it takes a meticulous, in-depth investigation to determine whether such failings are evidence of organizational dysfunction, or just the temporary setbacks and necessary hurdles that any competent organization might face. When failures can be traced to bad strategy or structure, the mistake’s origin might already be decades in the past. It is remarkable that three modern-day high-tech companies, at the tops of very different fields, all made catastrophic strategic errors apparently as soon as they put outsiders to the company’s technical tradition of knowledge in charge. They are unlikely to be the only similar cases in the global economy.
[continued ...]
palladiummag.com
Tom |
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