Intel's Expensive Disco Ball

Re-Pawn writes "From the NY Times: The Disco Ball of Failed Hopes and Other Tales From Inside Intel (Registration Required.) Seems like Intel is losing market share to other chip makers - this article highlights a few problems that Intel has had including one very expensive disco ball made from a failed attempt to produce projection televisions."

Comments

all your chips

[Shinaku]

are no longer belong to them!

Registration Not Required

[Anonymous Coward]

over at CNET, as I'm sure it is not required at many other sites.

What's with the /. addiction to NYT?

Re:Registration Not Required

[Bill Walker]

I'm pretty certain that the New York Times, newspaper of record in the United States for over a century, does not need to seed Slashdot in order to drum up circulation.

One of the attractions of conspiracy theories is the flattery of imagining you are important enough to spawn a conspiracy.

Re:Registration Not Required

[reynaert]

Your description pretty much matches most registered slashdot users. Cut the paranoia.

come on

[lashi]

oh, come on, what company doesn't burn some R & D money that ends up junked? I am sure all the "good" companies like IBM and so on have failed projects too.

Now if you are doing this as a showcase of bad ideas, let's link a few more interesting samples.

Re:come on

[Coryoth]

Wasn't centrino a success? It's low power and integrated wireless made AMD have to follow suit and revamp its mobile core line. Of course, the anti-intel slant (not you!) on this board tends to not see AMD failures.

Yes, Centrino was a definite win for Intel. That means they're doing well in the laptop market, but are losing share on the desktop. And yes, AMD is not without its own issues: The Opteron hasn't been doing quite as well as they would like. That's not exactly fatal, but its not exactly great press either.

So, in summary: laptop: Intel, desktop: AMD, server: still up for grabs. The question is whether the laptop market will supercede the desktop market - certainly the laptop market is growing faster... it may have a lower ceiling though, and there's always Apple and the Power chips to compete with there, and Apple is quite strong in laptops.

Only time will tell.

Jedidiah.

Re:come on

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"It applies to any laptop that has a Pentium M AND an intel wireless chip."

AND the Intel 855 chipset.

It's brilliant, actually. Intel has never advertised "Pentium-M", so people ask for a "Centrino" notebook. Because "Centrino" only applies when resellers use their wireless chip and chipset in addition to the Pentium-M, Intel effectively locks their resellers into selling Intel components when they might otherwise have not.

Not that the Intel PRO/Wireless 2200 and 855 chipset are bad. I'm thoroughly impressed with the trio.

Interesting thought for youall:

[Anonymous Coward]

Though the x86 now pretty much owns the consumer pc chip market unchallenged-- it's just that Intel isn't always the person shipping that x86 chip-- Intel's platforms are not doing so well in other areas. IBM's POWER chip, the chip the PowerPC is based on, is very very quickly becoming the new MIPS. All three of the next-generation video game systems-- the PS3, the XBox Next, and the Nintendo Revolution-- are known to use CPUs based off of a POWER core...

Just Desserts for Intel

[Anonymous Coward]

Intel has 2 shocking policies: bell-curve grading system and preferential hiring of H-1B workers from China (which includes Taiwan province and Hong Kong) and India.

More than 50% of Intel's workforce in the USA (not China) is current or former H-1Bs. Intel claimed that it absolutely needs Chinese workers in order to build a competitive product: e.g. Itanium. Then, IBM proved Intel wrong by producing the Power5, which is mostly built by American engineers.

Further, Intel has a brutal job evaluation policy: strict bell curve. If an employee falls in the bottom 25% more than once, then the manager shows her the door. Exceptions are made when there is a labor shortage, but officially, the 25% rule is strictly enforced.

I, for one, am glad that Intel is losing. I hope that IBM beats the pants off of it.

Re:Just Desserts for Intel

[Colonel Panic]

As someone who has contracted at Intel, believe me I'm not a fan of the company.

However, many companies now practice the rating and ranking system you describe. And it's not the bottom 25%, it's the bottom 10% from what I've heard.

As for H-1B workers: When I was last contracting at Intel (June 2004) the policy was that all permanent hiring was to be done outside of the US. In the US they could only hire contractors unless there was some very special skills needed. I suspect that this policy is still in place. This is of course worse than your claim that they only hire H1B workers - at least an H1B worker would be paying taxes in the US and contributing to the economy here. Many of Intel's former permanent employees in the US have now become contractors (via layoffs) which means that they can only work for the company for 12 months out of every 18 months (but look on the bright side, you get a six month vacation after contracting there for a year!) and no health benefits.-

Intel ZIG intiative

[stealth.c]

Perhaps now would be a good time for Intel to launch its enigmatic ZIG program. Nobody's quite sure what it is but rumor has it that the new initiative could result in great justice.

Re:Intel ZIG intiative

[s4m7]

Perhaps now would be a good time for Intel to launch its enigmatic ZIG program.

Invariably prompting AMD to release it's CATS system ahead of schedule. Make your time.

Intel simulation model way off

[Anonymous Coward]

The engineer described sitting in meetings where the company's simulation models showed that 95 percent of the chips from each test wafer would be usable, while the actual yields were closer to 4 percent.

Unfortunately, the simulations were running on Intel processors and were hit with rampant floating-point errors. They should have gone with AMD like the engineers wanted.

Use NYT Generator!

[antdude]

Clicky without logging in! Use NYT Generator for these NYT stories.

Re:amd is not the competition

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

"AMD is struggling hard, as they always have, to hold a modicum of the market. They are still nothing more than a small Intel. Intel has proven again and again that all they can do is make CPUs. The dismisal of the p4 line is a sign they acknowledge the trend in low power computing.

They are both about to get blown out of the water by Apple.

Apple is about to introduce an entertainment server. Everyone knows the future is networked consoles, but Sony et al are still focusing on games only. Apple will introduce a device that will displace the PC in a very short time. Fortunately their suppliers have horrible fab capacity. It wouldn't surprise me if Apple built in x86 if their volumes get high enough.

My bet is on the apple device."

You are so full of shit that you don't understand up from down.

1: Apple does not, and will not manufacture or design CPUs.

2: AMD *does* design and manufacture CPUs.

Intel and Apple *don't* compete because they don't manufacture the same products. Intel competes with AMD, Transmeta, IBM, VIA, Samsung, and other companies in a variety of fields.

Apple competes with software companies - like Microsoft, PC companies - like Dell, and, more recently, with

"Apple is about to introduce an entertainment server. Everyone knows the future is networked consoles, but Sony et al are still focusing on games only. Apple will introduce a device that will displace the PC in a very short time."

A media server is going to "displace" the PC? What a load of crap. Analysts have been spelling doom for the PC for *years*. Cellphones were going to kill the PC. Or PDAs. Or "smart" TVs.

Guess what? It's never happened. Because the PC is the best tool for communication. You can't displace the PC with a media center because, for most people, the PC isn't a media center. Most people use their PCs to get on the Internet. They surf the web and read email. A media server isn't going to displace that.

"It wouldn't surprise me if Apple built in x86 if their volumes get high enough."

Assuming your crackpot theory is correct, who do you think is going to manufacture those x86 chips?

AMD or Intel. That's who. They are the only companies producing high-performance x86 CPUs. Heck, they are the only companies *capable* of producing a high-performance x86 cpu in the short term.

"Everyone knows the future is networked consoles"

If by "everyone", you mean crackpot analysts, then, yes, "everyone" knows that.

Remember the PS2 hype? With it's FireWire and USB ports, the PS2 was supposed to be the "future networked console". It wasn't. It's just another game system, just like the XBOX. The PS2 hasn't killed the PC.

"Fortunately their suppliers have horrible fab capacity."

IBM can fab a lot more than you think. Not as much as AMD or Intel, but they have the resources to bring Apple as many PPC970 CPUs as they will need.