For the past 20 years intel’s business model is predicate on a clockwork release of a new process generation and new x86 designs that provide compelling new features top to bottom in the stack and everyone upgrades at least every few years. But sadly the wheels have fallen of this business model and the executives can’t adjust their strategy. When your executives and technologists can’t admit there is a fundamental change you know there is a problem. This is like a gambler or alcoholic who doesn’t admit they have a habit, LOL
1) Look at all the past remarks of leaders and technologists at intel at their comments about Moore’s Law and x86.
2) Ask at your next BUM what your GM’s opinion about the future of x86 architecture and Moore’s Law.
What does it say when the company’s leaders cannot acknowledge that the basic tenants of the company core product and strategy is fundamentally broken? How can they have a sustainable recovery and a path to new growth.
No exponential can continue, the past 30 years have been remarkable but lithography limits, physics and simply the fact we are out of atoms to scale means Moore’s Law of increasing performance and reducing cost and lower power all together is not possible. Yet every leader and technologist at Intel continues to blindly parrot that with innovations yet discovered by hard working RCG PhDs in Oregon it will continue. That Moore’s death has been wrongly predicted for the last 20 years and today is no different. Sorry it is different, anyone in PTD can tell you that it is different! Sorry past performance does not predict future direction regardless of what the fantasy dreams of BK and his blind managers like to believe.
Next x86, that virtuous cycle was amazing making WINTEL the envy of the world for the 90s and first decade of the 21st century. But that virtuous cycle of every faster performance and ever more capability in the OS and PC has come to past in adding value or more sales to the PC or even server platform. It has been disrupted by the iOS/Android and ARM virtuous cycle. Today that virtuous cycle ships a billion units and creates all the virtuous wealth. The WINTEL business wont’ go away, but for any leader to be deluded that that is the future is truly laughable. Even the partner to Intel in this has hitched its future on something that is agnostic to x86. Yet ask any leader if there is a non x86 growth story at Intel you get the same babble from the 90’s. Every major buyer of intel cloud / servers is looking at alternatives as the ARMy has the virtuous cycle of a billion units sold every year compared to a tiny couple hundred million in x86 space. This huge difference has allowed the ARMy ecosystem to take over all, allowed TSMC and Samsung to bank on huge volumes for their new factories while intel continues to cut capacity on x86 and has less revenue to fold back into R&D while the ARMy continues to grow stronger.
This is such the classic example of the innovators dilemma and sadly the leaders at the top have neither the technology savvy, leadership, vision or even simply plain high IQ to comprehend and try and do something at least real and plausible.
Sorry a company’s success won’t happen based on bets on everything under the sun. Huge companies can wither away, but in the case of Intel which only has x86 CPU and the next generation to feed it, it won’t wither it’ll implode as the next generation sputters and it has NOTHING.
Just look at where 10nm and 7nm is compared to where 22 or 14nm was, if you don’t’ know just asked your friend in Hillyboro how things are going, wink wink.
Good luck to those still on the Titanic as it loses revenue provided by 22 and 14nm and slips under the weight of 10nm and 7nm… the end is here.