We received some good feedback from our article on Intel’s Back to the Future Buy of Micron and I thought I would present another story line that gives readers a better perspective of what may be possibly coming down the road. In this case, it is the story of AMD and Samsung partnering to counter Intel’s platform play with Micron. The… Read More
Itanium Neutron Bombs Hit HP Campuses, Oracle Looking for Survivors
It was a series of Itanium Neutron Bombs detonating during the reign of 4 management teams (Platt, Fiorina, Hurd and Apotheker) that left HP campuses in Cupertino and Palo Alto in the custody of crickets. The devastation to employees and stockholders is absolutely immense and the current strategy calls for a further retreat into… Read More
Apple Will Nudge Prices Down in 2012: PC Market Will Collapse
Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, had an edict that each business unit needed to be #1 or #2 in the market or else he sold it off. HP is #1 in PC market share but it is exiting a business that it no longer can control and soon will bleed a lot of cash. HP’s Operating margin is under 6% and falling while Apple’s is at 40% and growing. So the question… Read More
Intel’s Back to the Future Buy of Micron
In an interview that Gordon Moore gave in early 2000, the former co-founder of Intel recounted how they abandoned the DRAM market in the early 1980s in order to exit the increasingly unprofitable business and focus on the promising, yet still young x86 processor market. Intel was also home to EEPROM and NOR Flash, two memory technologies… Read More
Will AMD Crash Intel’s $300M Ultrabook Party?
Let’s face it, the ships are burning in the harbor and there is only one way out of here for AMD. It needs to crash Intel’s exclusive $300M Ultrabook Party in order to grab a slice of the future, more profitable PC market.
Intel Capital Creates $300 Million Ultrabook Fund… Read More
Apple Roadmaps Intel to 14nm
Intel will not win the tablet market with any of the various Atom chips rolling out at 32nm, 22nm and even 14nm. They are too late to a game that Apple owns 90% of today and will so in the future. All of these ultra low power atom versions are like the Saturn test rocket developments that preceded the Apollo 11 Moon Landing. They are necessary… Read More
Intel’s Mobile Deja Vu All Over Again Moment
We have been here before… and when I say “we” I do include myself. Back in 1997, I joined a secretive company called Transmeta. The company was two years old and working on a new x86 microprocessor to challenge Intel. The original focus of the company was not to build a lower power processor, but one that was faster. As with… Read More
Intel Q2 Financial Secret: “Shhhh….We’re on Allocation”
Every Semiconductor Analyst has given Intel the once over a hundred times about their slowing PC unit volume. They are looking in the wrong place because the true secret of the Q2 earnings – in my humble opinion – is that Intel’s factories are full and parts are on allocation. What???
Check it out, high-end, 8 and 10 core XEON processors… Read More
Intel’s Barbed Wire Fence Strategy
Analysts tend to make judgments regarding Intel based on an existing conventional wisdom (CW) and projecting straight line into the future. As a former Intel, Cyrix, and Transmeta processor marketing guy I would like to offer a different perspective as I have been both inside the tent looking out and outside looking in.
The current… Read More
Intel Briefing: Tri-Gate Technology and Atom SoC
Sorry to disappoint but my 2 hours at the Intel RNB was a very positive experience. It is much more fun writing negative things about industry leaders because I enjoy the resulting hate mail and personal attacks, but the candor and transparency of the Intel guys won me over. They even asked ME questions which was a bit telling. I also… Read More