
Intel is laying off a major portion of its wearables group - sharmi
https://techcrunch.com/2016/11/18/intel-layoffs/
======
ChuckMcM
This is too bad, and a bit understandable. Intel is in a really odd place at
the moment. It is the 800lb gorilla in the CPU space who knows that the
manufacturer of gorilla food is currently unable to produce enough food to
feed it (the PC market). More systems running windowed operating systems that
people use will on a day to day basis will ship with ARM chips this year. That
is a huge shift. And while Intel is still king of the server shipments there
are people who want to be there too (Power and ARM). Two things contributed to
that, the first was that the smartphone became the "PC" for the masses, the
second was that Linux is instruction set agnostic in the data center.

Intel really _really_ needs a market they can dominate that consumes lots and
lots of chips. IoT is one bet, Wearables (apparently was) one bet. The scary
thing for Intel is that if they don't have enough demand to keep their billion
dollar fabs pumping, they start burning cash. Not clear what the strategy
there is. Look at IBM which sold off their chip capability to Global Foundry.
Once you have over capacity, a chip fab rapidly becomes a huge liability.

That said, the world could probably use a state of the art open access chip
house that wasn't in Asia or controlled by the Chinese. Not sure that Intel
could go there given their company history and organization.

Digression: One of the uniquely nice things about Sun was that since their
fiscal calendar ended on June 30th, when they axed major projects the layoffs
came in the spring rather than right before New Years. It always sucks to be
laid off but there are worse and better times to do so.

~~~
mattthebaker
Intel has never been a company focused on chip volume, they chose to exit the
DRAM business 20+ years ago. They focus on high end high margin products,
which is now primarily servers with the contraction of the PC market. This is
how they justify greater than $10B yearly expenditures on fabs and R+D. They
have maintained, and still do maintain a 2 generation lead on process
technology.

Alternate architectures are not going to do much to dent the two generation
lead in process.

IoT and Wearables mean nothing to Intel, there is not enough money there.
Mostly a marketing effort to signal to their investors they aren't going to
miss the next big opportunity like they did mobile. Of course that ignores the
fact that Intel was never going to be much of a player in mobile. All the
money in mobile is in the base stations, not in the handsets, and Qualcomm
(3rd largest semi conductor company behind Intel and Samsung) completely
dominates the IP in that market. What matters there is radio technology, not
microprocessors.

~~~
roymurdock
> IoT and Wearables mean nothing to Intel, there is not enough money there

Wearables maybe, as the market is relatively small as form factor-defined
markets go, but I wouldn't be so quick to write off IoT, which describes a
business model change more than a certain form factor or set of devices.

I listened to Murthy Renduchintala, President of the Intel IoTG group, speak
at GE Minds+Machines earlier this week. He stressed FPGAs (acquisition of
Altera) as well as SDN/NFV as key areas of interest for Intel going forward.

~~~
mattthebaker
This is considering IoT from a semiconductor company's perspective; There will
not be much revenue from the chips for this market. How much can they make per
smart light bulb? You also have to note that Intel doesn't have semiconductor
IP for nearly any radio protocol (BT, BTLE, Zigbee, they have wifi but not low
end) necessary to build SoCs to win those markets.

IoT will be a big market, but the profits won't be going primarily to the
semiconductor companies via chip sales. We won't likely see an "Intel Cloud
Platform" or Intel selling IoT deployment services.

The FPGA tech is interesting, but mostly irrelevant to IoT. FPGAs can really
benefit from Intels leading edge manufacturing, so that is a smart acquisition
(even before considering IA integration possibilities).

Intel does not have much of a presence in networking, and there are a lot of
competitors there who are more invested, and further, design their own silicon
(Cisco, Juniper, Huawei, brocade maybe). Maybe if they are able to productize
the silicon (as opposed to more exotic materials) optical transceivers they
have spent a ton researching they would have something huge here.

------
mikestew
_Intel took it a step further and shut down the Peak’s software support
(including cloud storage), effective by year’s end._

And thus the reason I stick to companies like Garmin for my "wearables". If
Garmin up and pulls out of the wearables market, then the market is well and
truly screwed and my choice won't make any difference. But a company like
Intel or Microsoft can just up and go "well, that hobby project didn't work
out. Back to our core business. Oh, and pull the servers down." and you the
consumer are left holding the bag.

~~~
throwanem
> you the consumer are left holding the bag

Not in this case. They're issuing MSRP refunds, no questions asked, in
exchange for returns whose shipping they also cover.

Full disclosure: I've just shipped back my own Basis Carbon Steel - a device
not even implicated in the overheating issue, but one for which they're still
accepting returns and providing refunds. I paid ~$150 for it a few years back;
they've said they'll be sending me a $234 check. Obviously, since I haven't
yet received the check, I don't yet know with certainty that they'll live up
to that claim, but they've given me no reason to doubt that they will. Overall
I'm very favorably impressed with the way they're handling the issue.

~~~
gnicholas
It's true that you'll get your money back, but it's still a pain for the
consumer since this isn't an optional recall. They're shutting down the
servers that enable the client-side apps, so the Peaks won't sync anymore.
This means consumers have to deal with the hassle of returning the unit and
move to another platform, after taking the time to move to this one.

~~~
throwanem
Business units and companies sometimes cease to operate. It's less than ideal,
but a fact of life all the same. In this case, they're doing so in a fashion
that's as consumer-friendly as possible. I think it's more worthwhile to laud
that, in hopes other IoT businesses will find it worth their effort to do
likewise, than to fuss about something that can't be changed in any case. But
of course that's just my view of the matter.

------
throwanem
I see the article mentions the Basis recall, but I want to expand on that here
for those who might look first or only at the comments.

For those who don't already know: Because the Basis Peak developed a nasty
habit of overheating to the point of second-degree burns, Intel has recalled
all Basis devices - not just the Peak, but prior versions as well.

If you currently own a Basis device or devices, visit
[https://www.mybasis.com/safety/](https://www.mybasis.com/safety/) in order to
find out how to send your recalled device or devices back to Intel, in
exchange for a full MSRP refund. (This is no small consideration! In my case,
I bought a Basis Carbon Steel several years ago for about $150. In exchange
for shipping it back to Intel, to whom it is currently en route, I'm told I
will receive a check for $234.)

Be advised also that the Basis data services will be shut down at the end of
this year. If you have fitness data in those services which you want to
retrieve, you must do so before January 1, 2017, or it will no longer be
recoverable. Also, and for the same reason, no Basis devices will be able to
sync from that date, which will make them essentially unusable even if they
would otherwise be.

It's sort of a shame to see a good product go down in flames like this. On the
other hand, the way Intel's handling it is extremely impressive, and I'm very
glad to see it - we can but hope, however forlornly, that this is the first
example of a new and much more customer-friendly style of handling IoT
deprecations.

------
makomk
Intel's wearables push always seemed more like a PR stunt than an actual,
thought-through business tactic. They put a great deal of effort into stuff
like Arduino support and sponsoring BMX championships, a TV show (America's
Greatest Makers), conceptual clothing lines, etc but apparently people who
actually wanted to use their hardware in products had trouble getting support
or chips and the specs just didn't seem to stand up (when they were available
at all).

~~~
mattthebaker
It was, and to appease investors that they are doing something about new
markets after missing mobile. No one in their right mind would choose Intel as
the platform for a wearable. The microcontroller companies: ST, NXP,
Freescale, etc have been deeply embedded there for decades.

------
theparanoid
I'm happy to be a /former/ Intel employee. Staying for layoffs sucks.

~~~
jakub_g
> Staying for layoffs sucks.

Depends on the country. I've heard about people who made little fortunes being
laid off. The most lucky one got laid off _twice_ after long tenures at two
different companies (due to the companies closing sites in the country or
something like that).

~~~
kilroy123
True. It's not uncommon to get laid off, receive a few months pay. Find and
start a new job weeks or a month later.

Though not everyone is so fourtanate.

------
arcanus
With moore's law slowing/dying out, hard to blame intel for desperately trying
to find new revenue streams.

~~~
agumonkey
Latest CPU leaks mention 10nm cpus about to land. They managed to keep Moore's
law afloat surprisingly longer than expected.

------
chenster
I paid the original Basis B1 for $199. Is the original Basis B1 covered in the
recall?

The notice says "... Service Shutdown Information We are shutting down service
... offering refunds for all Peak and __B1 __devices and accessories. ... "

So sounds like Intel is recalling ALL Basis device, not just Peak. However, B1
is not mentioned anywhere else on the page besides Peak.

~~~
evinr
Yes it is

------
rasz_pl
Who could of predicted 1 Watt x86 booting in real segmented mode with 300Hz
gpios is not the way to go in wearables?!?!

~~~
contras1970
Who could _have_! Who could _have_!

------
sickbeard
Ever since the old guard missed the mobile wave, they don't seem to want to
take any change on the "next-big-thing". If apple goes into something, they
all jump right in, business case or not

------
tootie
Tech companies should just not try to make consumer products. Build your chips
and your displays and your compilers and OSes, but please let retail
businesses figure out what customers might want before you start building
stuff just because you can. Apple is just about the only company that has
managed to get away with doing both.

~~~
GuiA
Asus, Acer, Samsung, Toshiba, MSI, IBM, Sony... all these companies and many
others sell components to other companies, but also made consumer products
that many people love. I don't quite get your logic.

