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Intel Declares Independence From PC, Prioritizes Cloud, IoT and 5G Efforts
A week after announcing 12,000 job cuts, Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has shared vision for the company, hinting a shift in its prime focus away from PC business. In a blog post, Krzanich said that the company will be actively growing its data center business. The chip maker also plans to focus on chips and technologies for IoT devices. "The biggest opportunity in the Internet of Things is that it encompasses just about everything in our lives today-- it's ubiquitous," Krzanich said. The company also plans to boost its memory chips business and make a push towards utilizing them in data centers and various cloud services. Intel said that it has made several investments in this field, noting the $16 billion acquisition of Altera last year. The company says it will be playing a big role in the move to 5G connectivity. "Connectivity is fundamental to every one of the cloud-to-thing segments we will drive," he writes.
Over the years, Intel has failed to keep up with Moore's Law, an axiom that semiconductor density will double about every two years. The company previously extended the timeframe to 2.5 years, but Krzanich assures customers that the they are working to make further advances in order to meet the goal. "Moore's Law is fundamentally a law of economics, and Intel will confidently continue to harness its value," Krzanich said. PCWorld has extensively reported on this.
Over the years, Intel has failed to keep up with Moore's Law, an axiom that semiconductor density will double about every two years. The company previously extended the timeframe to 2.5 years, but Krzanich assures customers that the they are working to make further advances in order to meet the goal. "Moore's Law is fundamentally a law of economics, and Intel will confidently continue to harness its value," Krzanich said. PCWorld has extensively reported on this.
That used not to be the case, then it was the case, now it much isn't the case again, particularly for Intel.
Intel's desktop only goes to 4 cores, a small number of PCIe lanes, no ECC memory support, 2 memory channels, single socket, and won't go to very high TDP.
Servers go to much higher core counts, pcie lanes, ecc memory, 4 memory channels, and more sockets, and will drive TDP through the roof to get more powerful if needed.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
And your watch will be you next phone.
"Don't worry, we'll be happy to take over."
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
It was a good post until "microsoft may just win the mobile phone market." This has already been won by Android (and to a certain extent by Apple as well). Microsoft can't win something they have already lost. Especially when they haven't even hardly begun the race when everyone else is already at home watching the highlights on the 11 o'clock news.
"Moore's Law is fundamentally a law of economics, and Intel will confidently continue to harness its value," Krzanich said.
Sorry, but Laws of physics inevitably trump "laws" of economics.
The internet of things is mostly hype, as people with nests at home have learned . Sure you can talk to your thermostat at home via the internet, but why would you want to?
Yes it should refocus on servers. But rather it should be the "home server" market. Maybe even home cluster.
The market for desktops has mostly gone away, replaced by laptops and tablets. These people only needed a PC for spread sheets, simple word processing, and running a web browser.
The gaming machines market is the same if not bigger.
Professional content creation workstations are bigger than ever.
Same money is being spent; just in different form factors.
There is one area that isn't being exploited and marketed enough. The private cloud; i.e. home servers.
Particular when mixed with virtual machines it's something that needs to happen more. Store all your media at home in one place. Use the online cloud only for immediate stuff and for backups. There is huge potential for streaming. A home server can do transcoding on the fly and a dozen other things all at the same time.
It's more about the demise of the low end desktop which in the least has been replaces by cigar box systems.
It's not even hatred of MS that doomed their phones. I tried one in a store, and it was actually pretty usable. Arguably better than the contemporary Android phones.
But they had no apps. Back then, Google Maps was the top dog, and it wasn't on Windows Phone. Maybe one app out of a dozen that I wanted actually ran on it. And I couldn't find replacements for half of them.
If people don't develop for the platform, it's not gonna live long. Even the perception of "no apps" is deadly because it makes people---both devs and users---shy away from that platform.
Microsoft failed to get the jump on mobile with Windows CE, and Windows Phone was good but too late to the party.
I would prefer Windows Phone over iOS (as it's the less-walled garden), but an OS without developer support is worthless.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Moving from de-facto monopoly position on expensive cpus to competing with dozens of companies producing cheapest possible crap for IoT devices. Yeah, that's a good plan.
Netscape v Microsoft was a David/Goliath matchup when you look at the companies behind the software. Plus Microsoft used illegal means to promote IE over Navigator.
The phone OS market is entirely different. Both Android and iOS are supported by large corporations. Both are entrenched with an ecosystem of apps dependent on them, and users' money sunk into those apps.
Navigator actually did have some unique plugins, but other browsers eventually implemented their plugin API. And users didn't have their money invested in the platform.
I'd say the chances of upheaval in the phone OS market are nowhere near the same as what it was for the 90s browsers.
I'd rate a compatible-yet-superior implementation like Cyanogen as the best bet, but even that's a long shot. Google has more than enough resources to respond to any serious contenders.
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According to the latest ruleset, this post should be modded as Vorpal Flamebait +5.
Even then, though, why get an Atom when you could get something like the TI MSP430? Low power, cheap eval boards, dirt cheap in bulk, and already fairly established. Intel is just putting products out there with the idea that anything with the Intel name on it will sell, but they aren't offering anything better suited to the markets they claim to be targeting. IoT is going to be big, but it's going to be stuff so cheap as to be disposable - think Amazon's buttons, stuff like that. I don't see Intel having much success there.
Intel exists, almost solely on a completely different business model of high wafer yields due to maniacal focus on a single process good for a couple of years that creates very high margins on each part. How they manage to wade this transition will be interesting.