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Intel Announces Brian Krzanich As Its Sixth-Ever CEO
wiredmikey writes "Intel on Thursday announced that Brian Krzanich will take the reins as chief executive officer (CEO) of the chip giant, succeeding Paul Otellini who previously announced that he would step down. Krzanich has served as Intel's chief operating officer since January 2012, and has held a series of technical and leadership roles since joining Intel in 1982, and will become the sixth CEO in Intel's history."
x86? Itanium? XScale?
Getting paid a lot, talking buzzwords, buying legislators, laying off workers, sleazy financial schemes.
What? This is a large American Business. They're in the business of being a big business. The fact that they actually make products and sell services is almost coincidental.
That's nice. But Nintendo, a 124 year old company, has only had 4 presidents.
Intel is in the business of making chips. Given that not making chips would lead to a nosedive in revenue for Intel, I think it is a little more than coincidental to the fact that they are also a big company.
Per some Googling:
82 - 94, process engineer
94 - 96, manufacturing manager
96 - 97, plant manager
97 - 01, plant manager of another location
01 - 03, "responsible for implementation of 0.13-micron logic process technology"
03 - 10, "responsible for Assembly Test" (some sort of VP, not 100% on times)
10 - 12, senior VP of Manufacturing and Supply Chain
12 - now, COO
LegendMUD
That's extreme hyperbole.
Brian Krzanich was trained in chemical engineering, and worked at Intel as a process engineer, and later managing entire factories. He also holds a patent in semiconductor processing. He's not a wall street MBA figurehead.
Intel spends 10 billion dollars a year exclusively on research and development. Naturally being the world's #1 chip producer, who sells chips in every country in the world and has 50,000 employees means that there is a ton of management to be done as well, but Intel does more "real world" work than 99% of other companies in the world.
You mean he'll take the the reins.
So they chose someone who was in this company for 30 years, almost half of it as engineer. I would call it smart move - especially if you compare them to, say AMD or HP - both suffering from somewhat randomly chosen CEOs interested in their bonuses and golden parachutes. Long term thinking is clearly in Intel's DNA - even if they occasionally slow down and get outinnovated by competitors (eg. AMD64). They'll be always there whatever happens - not by their sheer size but by quality of their management.
If I had mod points I would mod you up
That's insanity. A manufacturing company hiring somebody with hands on engineering experience at all levels. Everybody knows that to succeed you need an MBA who is great at marketing.
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That's insanity. A manufacturing company hiring somebody with hands on engineering experience at all levels. Everybody knows that to succeed you need an MBA who is great at marketing.
Depends on the manufacturing, if you're manufacturing toothpaste that is pretty much the same white goo as everyone else (hint, the coloring, taste and whatever is just superficial) then probably it's advertising, product placement, brand management and whatnot to make people choose yours over the next one that might be 5% more effective but nobody will ever notice. Processors on the other hand are intensely benchmark driven, it's very hard to talk your way out of engineering fail when you don't deliver - though it doesn't stop anyone trying. Even a car despite all the technical specs comes way more down to style, feel and brand processors, it's far more than MPG that counts.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
For what it's worth... Intel has more than 100k employees worldwide.
I'd like to buy a vowel, Pat.
...the future crusty old bastards are already drinking the Kool-Aid.
Not necessarily, some of the big wins Intel pulled off were marketing driven, for example Intel Inside and Centrino. End users didn't understand what they were getting, they just knew they wanted it.
While there is a major technical side to processors, a lot of it is not to make them better in benchmarks. Architecture drives benchmarks, manufacturing improvements can contribute, but usually they are more about the bottom line. Die shrinks more die per wafer and better yields = profit.
That said my post was mostly tongue-in-cheek. Krzanich's background I think is excellent. Not just from the hands-on engineering side which many on Slashdot focus on, but his background in supply chain management when he was a VP in ATTD. The constant turn over of processes puts a stress not only on the company but its suppliers. One chemical vital to photolithography may need a sharp ramp up in one year, with a ramp down 2 years later.
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One can also make toothpaste more cheaply and win that way. Streamline manufacturing processes, find cheaper sources of raw materials, etc. And this Intel CEO has plenty of experience with that side of a business. This is critical for Intel since they need to make their chips cheaper than everyone else and be seen as a reliable supplier of parts.
Making chips cheaply is one thing but being relevant is another. Intel has the PC market, but from what we are seeing, the PC market is in decline. Part of this is that computers from six years ago are still good enough. Part of this is that tablet and smart phones are replacing the 2nd computer that people may have gotten. Part of it is that people outright detest Win 8. In the meantime, the sales of ARM processors have skyrocketed. Apple sold nearly 54M iOS devices in the first quarter alone. That's 54M devices not powered by Intel. This is the challenge for Intel in the next decade.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Dang! Just lost my mod points but - you're right. In my long career I've worked at lots of companies of all sizes, including 7 years at Intel. Easily one of the best run and most open-source friendly companies going. I was there when Andy Grove told Bill Gates to shove it when Bill asked them not to send any execs to speak at a Linux conference. Andy went himself.
Intel does a whole lot more than CPUs for PCs. If the home PC industry vanishes they'll still be making chips, just not as many and not as many premium ones. They've got chips that compete with ARM too, and they're not locked out of making ARM chips anyway as they've licensed it before in the past. They've licensed ARM before and can get back into that big time in short order. Then there's still the PC server side industry, and that's not vanishing, something's got to be there running the web searches and social networks. Look inside those iOS and Android devices and count the chips, some of those are from Intel. And the PC desktop won't die and vanish, it's still going to remain big in the workplace and for people who do more with their computer than update the social status, it'll just diminish.
I don't know if I'm more impressed that they've only had 6 CEOs, or that they selected a guy who has risen from engineer through their ranks for 30 years.
Intel doesn't want to put the hurt on AMD - because AMD is keeping the government off their back in the name of competition. (If AMD fails, the government will probably force AMD's patents that Intel licenses to be distributed to everyone else, and the government may split Intel up into foundry and design).
And Intel's a reliable supplier - they don't have shortages of parts, and have enough spare capacity that if you're wanting huge quantities (like an OEM like Apple), they'll customize you a chip to your specs (like how Apple's Macs all come with Intel VT, even if the chip used typically doesn't).
Actually, a few toothpaste manufacturers put arginine or a comparable product in. This stuff (and the comparable products too) actually works http://www.colgateprofessional.gr/LeadershipGR/ProfessionalEducation/Articles/Resources/pdf/Journal_of_Clinical_Dentistry_Pro-Argin_Special_Issue_2011.pdf and I usually shop for toothpaste with such an additive.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Centrino branded processors used Pentium-M processors and had half the power draw of their closest competitor. Consumers may not have known what a "centrino" was, they did notice it had wireless connectivity, better battery life and was almost a kilogram lighter than an "athlon".
The big problem with Centrino was that Intel used this to enter a market in which they had no presence: Wifi. Before Centrino there was healthy competition between a fairly large number of manufacturers. Intel used their monopoly power in processors to eliminate this competition. Any anittrust authority with half a ball should a fined them several billions for this fact alone.
So essentially, Intel has put someone who helped run their crown jewels - their fabs - in charge of the company? Great move on the part of Intel (and no, I'm not being facetious)
But if all else were to (hypothetically) fail (which it wouldn't, given that x86 won't go anywhere as long as Windows is around), Intel could still survive purely as a fab company - of the likes of TSMC, UMC, GSMC, et al, only far superior. As the #1 foundary company in the world, there wouldn't be a dearth of companies wanting to use their expertize for the latest & greatest in manufacturing. And Intel could always recoup its costs from various things - wafer pricing to allocations. If I understand right, Intel already fabs for the likes of FPGA companies, and would have plenty that it could provide.
Oh I don't disagree that Intel makes a lot of chips. Their flagship products are their CPUs. And that market is in danger or being overtaken by ARM processors indirectly as people start using more tablets and smartphones. So far Atom hasn't made much of an impact.
MS is in the same boat. The bulk of their revenue and profit is Windows and Office. More people choosing tablets and cloud software affects MS. So far the offering from MS have been lackluster.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Well I hope that he does better than his last job as a school teacher turned meth dealer, or as Malcom's dad!
Intel has done will in the iOS department. The problem is they are still playing catch up with ARM in terms of cell, tablets, and other low power designs.
Intel's business is heavily focused on gross margins. Just look at how the stock tanks when it dips below 60%.
At Intel many of the foundry type applications are done when certain technology processes are being warmed down (machines have been fully amortized, processes have been stable and capable for years, and there aren't any breakthroughs needed to get the product built. They aren't getting the absolute best technical solutions, they are getting the lines, engineers, and equipment that are on their way out. That is unless Intel dealing with really expensive high margin product. Things along the lines of ultra-expensive corporate mega servers with huge die, innovative design requirements, or entirely new form factors (since Intel can provide both processor and motherboard solutions..
In fact some business units within Intel (think low cost consumer applications) have outside fabs manufacture their designs because it's more cost effective than tying up internal resources working on the more profitably next gen Core processors. Remember Xscale, Intel based designs based on ARM projects which were often externally manufactured.
Fact is most outside companies looking for a foundry, are willing to use TSMC or other lower cost (not necessarily low quality) fabs because their designs don't need the manufacturing complexity. Plus with the heavy commitments to internal customers (who represent billions of dollars in revenue), many external customers don't want to see their designs placed at the back of the queue.
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I would say the Atom line is being beaten by tablets, the mainstream Core series CPUs are not (yet). There's a lot of growth in ARM, but they are still playing catch-up in the desktop market. Tablets and phones tend to be compliments to traditional desktops. There are major input(mouse&keyboard), storage (1TB+) and output (24"+ screens) that ARM hasn't penetrated. Most people who use a tablet, have a desktop.
Growth is in portable computing, but standalone home computers aren't going away anytime soon.
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