
Intel Fights for Its Future - KKKKkkkk1
https://mondaynote.com/intel-fights-for-its-future-6498f886992b
======
ternaryoperator
This article makes it seem that being a major player in mobile is the only way
Intel could survive. Mobile is a decelerating market, while cloud and servers,
where Intel has a huge lead is an expanding market and profitable. In 2017,
Intel's revenue hit an all-time high, as it did the year before, and its stock
is an all time high. This is not a company "fighting for its future."

~~~
aleem
The headline is definitely sensationalist but there are threats and missed
opportunities on Intel's horizon and past.

The lure of mobile is the upgrade cycle as those are much shorter. The same,
short upgrade cycles were a boon for intel in the hey day of desktops/laptops.

The bigger threat the article fails to focus on is ARM. Singularity for apps
has always hinged on write-once-run-everywhere. Intel hasn't been able to
compete with ARM lately and it seems that ARM is moving into Intel's turf. A
few months back Microsoft launched windows 10 on ARM -- that's an inflection
point. Apple relatively recent iPad Pro also continues to blur the lines along
with other initiatives around app continuity (Mac/iOS) or the Nintendo
Switch's hardware continuity that offers a glimpse into what the same thing
could look like for mobile in general.

It's not for Intel's lack of trying either. It's just that ARM got off to a
good start while Intel failed to make in-roads with Atom and whatever else.

~~~
IshKebab
Yeah but the upgrade cycle won't stay short for long, just like it hasn't for
desktops.

Give it 10 years and people will be keeping their phones until they break.

Also anyone can make an ARM CPU so the margins are thin, whereas with x86 CPUs
Intel will basically only ever have one competitor - AMD. They want to find
another monopoly.

~~~
hkmurakami
Even today I see an increasing number of friends moving from 2 years cycles to
3 year cycles.

The "killer app" for smartphone refresh rates staying low are (1) battery
degradation and (2) forced OS updates for app updates, which in turn slows the
phone down to compel an update[1].

[1] I'm actually curious if OS updates slow down older phones these days. This
was the case 5 years ago but perhaps things have changed/

~~~
HankB99
I have a Nexus 5X that was 2 years old late last year. At that time I git it's
last major OS upgrade. (It will continue to get security updates for another
year or so.) This is as good as it gets in the Android world.

It was hobbled at the outset with 2GB RAM. At introduction performance was
adequate. It has degraded since then. There are times when I exit an app and
it takes several seconds before the home screen is populated. Navigation
normally runs in the background but if I open a different app, it may get
bumped and disappears from notifications. I listen to podcasts frequently and
its background process (the part that keeps audio going if I open other apps)
gets bumped.

These are not related to processor horsepower but I believe are symptoms of
insufficient RAM. It could also result from additional installed applications,
but I have uninstalled more than I have added and it seems not to improve.

Maybe it's time to look at third party ROMs.

~~~
alyandon
I had a 5X that I recently replaced due to the common boot loop failure.

Towards the end of its life its performance had degraded to the same point you
experienced. Multiple seconds for the home screen to populate, camera lag,
etc. It's crazy that a cell phone with 2GB of ram is incapable of running
recent versions of Android with decent performance and even crazier when I'd
open up a task manager and see mandatory things like Google Play Services
consuming almost 60% of the ram on the device.

------
krapht
I think this article misses the point: Intel has nothing to gain by entering
the commodity smartphone processor market. The margins are slim, and therefore
doesn't make good use of Intel's advantage in semiconductor fabrication.

Serial performance is important in processors, and as long as Intel is king in
this area, they will have a home in server racks and workstations. I keep
hearing about how cheap arrays of ARM processors will take over the world, but
I'll believe the easy parallel programming unicorn has arrived when I see it.
It seems more likely to me that when this is the case, a move to GPUs, FPGAs,
or custom accelerator card would make more sense.

~~~
Athas
In the short run, you are correct. However, by looking at history, it seems
that the high-end chip manufacturers always end up being replaced by the low-
end manufacturers, as the focus on cheap, small, low-power designs end up
providing various strategic advantages (and raw revenue for product
development). That's how Intel replaced the various RISC manufacturers in the
90s.

Of course, the field is young enough that this has only happened two or three
times, so it may just be a coincidence. Still, I like the thought of ARM chips
replacing Intel in ten years, and twenty years later ARM being replaced by
whoever currently makes the chips for those musical greeting cards.

~~~
sah2ed
Exactly -- the key thing is the historical cost structures of the high-end
makers makes low-end chip making highly unattractive which was why it was easy
for Paul Otellini to say no to Apple to make chips for the iPhone.

In the end, low-power chipmakers like ARM have no where else to go but up --
they can slowly move up-market and over time, enjoy the same high margins but
at much lower costs relative similar to entrenched players like Intel.

------
hugs
Years ago, during a fund-raising tour of Silicon Valley VC firms for my
previous company, we also pitched Intel Capital (their in-house VC arm). Their
feedback to our pitch was that our SaaS service was "too compute intensive"
and therefore they passed.....

 _Intel thought we used too many CPUs?!_.....

All these years later, I'm still in disbelief. I do realize that VCs often are
uncomfortable giving the _real_ reason they're passing, but "too many CPUs"
was a first for me. (And my company is still around and making more than
$25MM/year, thank you very much.)

~~~
dmichulke
Maybe the intention of the fund was to diversify - i.e., hedge their huge
exposure to the CPU market by investing into totally different things, i.e.,
not you!

~~~
slivym
I knew a guy who was a technical advisor to Intel Capital (worked at Intel).
They're not there to diversify, they use capital to advance their existing
business strategy in key markets. They often take stakes in companies that
Intel are partnering with on technical projects in order to gain some level of
insight, control, and eventually to acquire the company if there's a strategic
argument for it.

For example, a company might be developing some cool new IP that Intel is
considering licensing or is licensing. Intel Capital will take a stake in the
company, and then eventually might consider acquiring the company if they want
to corner the technology or think it's cheaper than a long term licensing
agreement.

------
cyberjunkie
Intel has reasons to be worried. They missed several buses, trains and ships
and other opportunities. Servers still appear to be secure but with threats
from ARM solutions, and AMD.

Windows 7 and Windows 10 have been pretty efficient operating systems. That's
great for Microsoft but not Intel. With identical system requirements, it
means there's very little reason for most people to upgrade hardware. Me, a
supposed high-end PC user am still running a 3rd generation Core i5 processor
with no urgent need for upgrading in the near future. Graphics cards are still
a once every 2-3 year upgrade for PC games.

~~~
m_mueller
also threats from NVIDIA in high-throughput demanding markets (machine
learning, crypto mining, HPC). Essentially Intel hasn't been able establish
new markets and their existing ones are being chipped away.

------
PyComfy
Intel shall definitively be worried

[https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm-takes-wing/](https://blog.cloudflare.com/arm-
takes-wing/)

------
PaulHoule
This article misses that Intel has really missed the boat when it comes to
GPUs; the company that it needs to beat is NVIDIA which actually is producing
a rapidly improving product.

Intel integrated GPUs have no place at all in deep learning. They are
perfectly good for emulating the 2001 Gamecube and playing classics like Doom
and Quake, but they have a bad enough reputation among gamers that if and when
they do come out with a discrete card they will have to brand it something
other than Intel.

~~~
zdfjkhiuj
The company they need to beat is AMD. AMD's integrated GPU's are thoroughly
trouncing Intel's and are good enough for light gaming. Their weak integrated
graphics hurt their core business of CPU sales.

They certainly want to compete in the discrete GPU space, but I think they
should be much more scared of losing CPU market share.

------
bogomipz
The author states:

>"If the dispute is settled, Intel loses its wireless modems deal with Apple.
No mobile CPUs + no modems = nothing of substance."

Aren't nearly all processors in mobile devices a SoC these days? Isn't the
"wireless modem" just an LTE radio on the same SoC that has an 802.11 radio
for wifi? I'm not understanding how these would be separate in a device like
an iPhone.

------
joeblau
> By declining Steve Jobs’ proposal to make the original iPhone CPU in 2005,
> Intel missed a huge opportunity.

I'm really intrigued by stories of missed opportunities. Certain companies
have all of the power then make a minor miscalculation on the future of
technology. Does anyone have similar personal experiences that echo this type
of missed opportunity deal?

~~~
erikb
I think this is a misinterpretation. If you are the market leader and have
huge profits you can enter such a market at any time. It just costs more and
more the stabler the market becomes, which in turn of course also decreases
the risks and costs of development. The art is finding the sweet spot to
enter, and beating the competition that's already in the market and tries to
keep you out.

------
muyuu
Not a single company in the field has a 100% guaranteed future. Even
Microsoft, completely dominating in the 90s, is now second fiddle to the likes
of Google and has their future jeopardised by the emergence of the cloud and
mobile platforms.

Having said that, Intel are going nowhere overnight.

~~~
erikb
And even Google feels a little shaky these days, not really knowing what the
next big thing could be for them after search+ads. Their mobile and their
cloud business are both small compared (if the data didn't change over the
last 1-2 years, haven't looked it up for some time).

------
mtgx
I think at least part of this reason is driven by NSA/DoJ, just like
Microsoft's Skype acquisition was.

Also, why is Krzanich still CEO? He's made terrible decision after terrible
decision. Buying Broadcom now reminds me a lot of Ballmer wanting to buy Yahoo
for $40 billion. In hindsight that looks like a terrible deal, doesn't it? I
think if Intel buys Broadcom, this will look the same in 10 years.

Intel has strong conflicts of interest _against_ other non-x86 chip divisions,
which would be Broadcom, I'm sure it's the same with Altera, too. In a few
years they'll regret buying FPGAs, too.

The "synergy" is a lie.

------
narrator
Speaking of Intel failing to innovate, has anyone seen Intel's 10nm process?
Canon Lake was supposed to be out in 2016 and it has now been pushed back to
mid-2018. There was a super brief update about it at CES [1]. Makes one wonder
if the future is not arriving on-time as previously expected.

[1] [https://www.anandtech.com/show/12271/intel-mentions-10nm-
bri...](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12271/intel-mentions-10nm-briefly)

~~~
deepnotderp
10nm is facing acute yield issues, rumoured to be because of the use of
cobalt.

~~~
narrator
I am surprised at the under-reporting of this issue. We are literally on the
brink of a serious chip technology stagnation which could cause a dead stop to
moore's law and very few people are concerned.

------
seanmcdirmid
When I graduated from UW in the late 90s, Intel was the place to work for most
CE and many CS majors (as well as tons of EEs). Those glory days are long gone
it seems.

------
erikb
Often the solution is a stalemate until a profitable opportunity arises. So,
no surprises here.

Interesting to see that such a giant can really start shaking so badly by
losing one of its sources of profit. I think even if the whole desktop market
dies Intel will still make more money than most companies. Sure, maybe they
need to shrink 80%, but 20% is far from a small company.

------
mankash666
Both deals [Intel, broadcom] , [Qualcomm, broadcom] are unlikely to pass
regulatory muster. Further, as many have noted, Intel doesn't have a seat at
the mobile table.

It just wants to thwart a [Qualcomm, Broadcom] combine that's likely to aim at
Intel's jugular - the cloud/server market

~~~
snuxoll
I hope any merger or purchase of Broadcom is thoroughly investigated,
considering how much of the datacenter market and even consumer networking is
reliant on them there's a lot of ways the entire industry could get messed up
by the purchasing company.

Between switch ASIC's like the Trident II, RAID controllers and SAS HBA's,
802.11 chips, DOCSIS modem chips, optics, etc. they are almost everywhere even
if you don't see them.

------
huslage
There are always missed opportunities in any business. Intel did not capture
the mobile market, so what? There is no evidence that ARM-based servers from
Qualcomm, or anyone else for that matter, will somehow make a dent in Intel's
leadership in that space in the short to mid term. Not to mention that Intel
has significantly diversified its product line and will continue to do so.

There is not a world where there will be one processor manufacturer. We will
see multiple manufacturers on multiple architectures for as long as things
continue to progress.

Intel may have a short-term existential threat, but that threat is minimal.

~~~
chmaynard
I think you missed the point. It's fine to disagree, but your comments
indicate that you don't understand or appreciate the magnitude of Intel's
hubris and the inevitable blunder that followed. Intel literally invented the
microprocessor. The fact that they let this opportunity slip through their
fingers is astonishing.

------
stcredzero
Has Intel experienced some kind of strategic brain drain in the past 5 years?
I remember a professor telling me in the late 90's about how RISC wasn't going
to dominate the future, because Intel had a roadmap going well into the 2000's
specifying how they were going to stay ahead. Now, it looks like AMD has the
strategic upper hand.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucMQermB9wQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucMQermB9wQ)

------
Rambunctious
Why can't Intel acquire Qualcomm instead of Broadcom?

~~~
make3
it likely would never pass with the regulatory agencies I suppose

------
dbcooper
A key point missed in this discussion is that Intel needs high volume through
its fabs to pay for their high capital investment requirements.

If it doesn't have the consumer CPU volumes (notebook, desktop, mobile) then
production costs for server chips will be much higher, and it won't have those
nice margins.

------
jarym
Intel also taking its eye off the ball as far as desktop and laptop CPUs go.
CoffeeLake should be renamed CoffeeBreak given the years it’s been delayed!

Perfect storm if AMD continue to pile on pressure and ARM licensees start
making inroads into servers.

~~~
Symmetry
The big problem is that Intel's 10 nm is very late, rumor says having to do
with their decision to move to using cobalt more aggressively than other other
fabs. Intel's traditional advantage in their silicon process is substantially
eroded which is making things much easier for their competition.

------
kev009
They are also showing signs of fatigue in the data center space which carries
high margins. The underhanded I/O game they are playing is both alienating
customers and providing a big opportunity for AMD, IBM, and Arm.

~~~
matheusmoreira
>The underhanded I/O game they are playing

Can you please elaborate on this?

~~~
slededit
They are extremely stingy on the PCIe lane counts to limit the usefulness of
GPU coprocessors. They've also pretty much ignored PCIe v4.

------
baybal2
Barely insightful. The rumor of Intel buying Broadcomm, ... is most likely
being perpetuated by Broadcomm itself

~~~
chmaynard
Gassée has his own reality distortion field, of course. His punditry is
entirely focused on closed-source, proprietary technology and the big
corporations that own it. He never writes about RISC-V or Linux, perhaps
because they aren't generating big sums of cash and therefore aren't worthy of
his attention.

------
senatorobama
This thread is funny because no one really knows what Broadcom does.

