Keep in mind that PCs are dinosaurs and the REASON for all of the layoffs is that people aren't buying these anymore.
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70 posts and ZERO product ideas.
I'm sure PCs will pick up real soon now!
LOLOLOLOLOL
Carry on...
yep - agree - 'indiscriminate cuts' is right - reading the stories of 20-yr employees with EEs ' and
SSL2' let go because of one SSL4.
Management was long ago divorced from the pain of the 'little people' - BK in a previous BUM boasting / gloating "My job is to turn the knobs and make things move". Little did we all know.
Will management do right by current employees and those it cut indiscriminately ( Banning re-hire is illegal per EEOC and Intel is set for a class-action suit - also on age discrimination with the average age of targeted employees at 47. Time will tell )
"Just a bunch of operational recommendations that will make Intel better at building things people don't want."
Actually, just the opposite. Changing Intel culture back to being market and customer-focused and away from being arrogant, ignorant and insular will go a long way toward ensuring that things that customers will buy / meet current and anticipated market needs rise to the top of what's actually supported and funded.
Still no solution.
Just a bunch of operational recommendations that will make Intel better at building things people don't want.
Intel's current diversification strategy is
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IoT
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NV memory
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FPGA
WHAT should change here?
Don't give me this BS about listening to engineers and risk taking. Let's hear about some specific product solutions. If your manager won't hear you, there's no one stopping you from posting your idea here.
My prediction: NO ONE has anything to offer.
Some keeps on talking about what are the solutions, so I will start with what I think are the assets
1) Talent: no question there is still some of the smartest engineers and technologists on the earth in the design and process side.
2) Silicon technology and manufacturing: world class leading edge factories and technology
3) Design: x86 IP and design / architecture leadership.
Now what is broken
1) Cultural and management decision process
2) True risk taking and listening down as to solutions and possible directions.
3) Highly insular management with no outside experience for the most part
4) Fast moving and nimble, lets be honest 20 years of insular promotions and building solutions not to fail in a monopoly doesn't create nimble and lean organization
The fix which has been proposed before but NOBODY that is a long time internal can rationalize.
Split the company into a x86/design and Manufacturing
This forces the X86 and design to really re-examine what is most efficient. When x86 has to go compete on its own merits maybe they find an ARM core really is the best thing, and/or vice versa. Also they will be forced to license to survive versus the current license only to promote and protect the internal products, very different.
Forces TMG to compete, become more efficient, must consolidate to much bigger and more flexible factories. Get over overengineer the process and makes everyone with TMG more pragmatic about output / cost, versus the silly prioritization of one thing over everything else. Make people take PPAC more seriously. If TMG doesn't have a captive x86 to fill its factories, trust me the attitude and internal bickering between TMG and divisions will disappear overnight. Imagine a TMG that has to compete with TSMC, Samsung, and GF for x86 or chipset business, LOL
I know the split has been proposed before and everyone that is "internal" always says they are stronger together as that is the only way they know how to think in their insular world.
But the outside has changed the biggest and most successful are the separated, think NVIDIA, ARM, QUALCOMM combined with TSMC and Samsung. You are forced to scramble and offer the most competitive. At intel the x86 monopoly while once a virtuous goldmine is gone, and the industry and strength has moved to the open scramble of the fittest and most nimble. Intel simply can't be nimble and innovative as a joined company, but while BK and the larger Intel inside crowd is running it it will continue to be handicapped and shrink and shrink till BK gets BK'd and an outsider will come in and carve it up as it should have been now.
Sadly in the CRB and early PSO days there was a chance for intel to have leaped to become a 100B company that would have dominated the world like IBM / GE or ATT did once, but sadly those leaders didn't see nor seize the opportunity
+1 on spin off's !
Intel had lots of great stuff, bound to TMG planning cycles and PC business expectations - totally insane... MBA Day 1 stuff...
"Lots of complaints ,but no solutions!"
That's the point: there is no "solution" - only actions that Intel leadership could take to change course.
Many of those actions include NOT doing things that hurt the company.
The idea that there is nothing that Intel could have done or can do to reinvent itself (with the right leadership) in the face of a declining PC market is bunk. At this stage, restructuring is way overdue.
That the leadership that ran us into the ditch because they were asleep at the wheel still doesn't have a plan (or clue) beyond indiscriminate cuts is really troubling.
Well, if the solution was to reduce the workforce then lay off the IR, bring back performance management with official BE ratings and maybe lay them off, instead of using qty of stocks which did not really match with actual performance.
Lots of complaints ,but no solutions!
LOL.
Carry on...
Let me tell you my experience over the past couple decades and why without a change this company is going down. The stock is doing great, BK's quarterly who knows maybe even go to 40 dollars and all the executives, VPs and Murthy will be slapping each others back with the money they've made as well many all they way down to Gr9 be plenty happy, but let me tell you this place is rotten at the core and like a great big tree that looks great on the outside the wind is a blowing and the ARMy is getting stronger and it most certainly will collapse.
I had the very unique opportunity to see two other companies, one of which was world famous and a leader, and was lucky to get in and see the inner at Intel for 20 years.
I had many ideads, lets just say the few times I piped up, I was put down. Famous quotes like "you must be too busy" or "do you have nothing better to do" " that is a waste of time" " that is stupid" "why would we be so stupid to do that" You get the point, my career stalled, I loved my job, pretty good at it to. One level 4 stock in my whole career of 20+ years.
But the problem for outside of the box thinking is simply been crushed from anyone from RCG up thru senior managers. Unless you are MCM and you can somehow whisper and convince them it is "their" idea forget about anything innovative from big picture direction to the most mundane things like whole to do a tool qual, or install or solve a problem different. The same answer I got will come from your manager.
BTW: Moore's Law is come to an end, Intel has no plan when it does, it's strategy is based on the value of the new product and value from continued scaling of x86.
For x86 the value proposition for client is gone, for mobile/table well you know about the billions lost
For analog shrinking is very compelling as most analog doesn't scale so modems and such gain little
For low power and IoT the die is small very small so the need for advance technology isn't compelling.
Lastly the volume of x86 is dropping while for ARMy is growing and thus R&D at capacity build at Samsung and TSMC drawf intel. And how did x86 win, it was huge volumes that fed R&D and factory and progress, but that virtuous cycle now feeds ARMy.
Now the ARMy got a huge sugar daddy... so the x86 picture has never been more grim.
Sure the Server/cloud will fool wallstreet and make BK and intel look good for a bit longer, just like IBM did for a while but the reality once the compute volume moved away from Mainframs IBM was dead, once compute moved from mini computer DEC, Wang, SUN and a host of other companies died, And when compute moves to the ARMy Intel will be a DEC/Wang/Sun more than a IBM like survivor.
The sad thing is BK's current strategy doesn't harvest or build on any of Intel's core strength to position it to survive when Moore's Law, x86 end.
BK is BKing the company!
Boy, if this doesn't sound familiar: did some stuff that would normally deserve a promotion and didn't even get a thank you.
As for karma... the 'unthankful' manager in my situation got ISP'ed (6 yrs later). Oh well! Buh-bye! lol
Changing Intel starts with getting the sh--, corrupted managers out. I worked my assoff did some stuff that I can't mention that would normally deserve a promotion and didn't even get a thank you. This software product I developed saved the group millions of dollars per year. F--- you Intel and F--- you managers. After 25 years of service I decided to leave on my OWN terms and not wait to be given a VSP or ISP. I walked out and gave the building the middle finger.
The only conspiracy is incompetence
Implement true diversity at Intel. Limit numbers of Indians, Chinese, females, etc to be more representative of general engr population.
Still waiting for these ideas that didn't "rise" to the top due to some Intel conspiracy. LOL!
"Ideas are worthless on their own.
They need an execution plan.
They also need to be vetted by someone with vision so you can avoid mica bracelets Mcafees from happening.
There is zero evidence that good ideas are being killed at Intel. There is plenty of evidence that bad ideas are funded.
Again, dipshit, what good ideas have been "killed"? So far - nothing I've seen here."
Of course "ideas" (proposals, concepts, whatever you want to call them) need execution plans. Who said that they didn't? Intel of today is culturally incapable of either prioritizing ideas OR executing.
For every decision forum in which a Mica bracelet or other stupidity was funded, countless other - better - ideas (proposals) were not. Why did the stupidity rise to the to the top? Because decision forums at Intel are too often a choreographed circle jerk among cronies and pets.
Instead of thinking that a CEO should come up with a big idea to save Intel, fixing the culture respects the reality that Intel succeeds or fails based on the accumulation of millions of decisions that tens of thousands of employees make on a daily basis.
Ideas are worthless on their own.
They need an execution plan.
They also need to be vetted by someone with vision so you can avoid mica bracelets Mcafees from happening.
There is zero evidence that good ideas are being killed at Intel. There is plenty of evidence that bad ideas are funded.
Again, dipshit, what good ideas have been "killed"? So far - nothing I've seen here.
*Full factories are key for Intel's margins, and they are not full. With PCs declining, fill them up by focusing R&D on foundry 14nm ARM production (works on 22, 14 needs help). This opens doors to better IoT products if Intel designs in ARM and x86. Intel has to come to grips that it won't get paid twice for everything in its factories (x86 design plus manufacturing). ARM production will follow CPU/SOC on a new process like chipsets used to so Intel does maximize process advantage when it is getting paid twice.
The server business, its MSS and growth must be protected as it pays for everything while this clusterf*k is sorted out and recovered. That means innovation and perhaps price cuts to key customers.
*The supply chain to the customer is a mess of poor contracts, slow response and poor demand forecasting. Put Stacy S. on this with goals that reduce cost, SKUs, and develop an AI demand model that eliminates the human tweaking and padding we see today. Due to the process length and cost of 10nm, this must be done before its launched. If he doesn't hit the goals, he resigns.
*I actually agree with Murthy's focus on specific bread and butter products and ensuring execution with teams of three.
*Set a revenue/HC target of $600-625k and stick to it (means ~90k employees currently)
*And seriously, stop buying companies you can't extract value from. Just stop.
An insider like BK is not capable of doing these things, he would be seen as a failure by the board for letting Moore's law and the cash cow die even though it was already stage 4 when he took over. The thing Intel has working against it is time.
"Setting up a different culture is great, but without a specific plan of action, you'll just be drowning on the titanic with slightly nicer rooms.
Yes it is that simple. Intel needs to leverage their strengths to come up with a product to mitigate the decline in PCs.
So far - crickets from the peanut gallery over here."
Actually, you're missing the point.
Intel employees have come up with, I'm sure, hundreds or thousands of great products and features that COULD HAVE helped the company move away from PCs (and/or made PCs more compelling).
It's INTEL CULTURE AND POOR LEADERSHIP that ensured that those ideas never got resources... and bad ideas got funding and "legs."
The best ideas at Intel will die on the vine if they don't come from the right people. And stupid ideas will get drowned in money if they come from favored employees (or the "genius" advisors from Bain).
Lack of execution is another issue that has its roots in the toxic culture at Intel.
So someone here could propose the perfect silver bullet product or feature to make Intel great again...and it would be, of course, ignored...and if it wasn't ignored, it would be late (and full of bugs)...because of Intel's broken culture (leadership, management).
So the specific plan of action MUST involved fixing the underlying cultural issues that have resulted in Intel being in the present debilitated state. Not some Eureka new product or feature.
Capiche, dipsh*t?
@1ant - Intel gives up on new stuff without ever giving it a shot to develop a market. No patience to grow a market.
Experienced outsiders that come to Intel must feel like they've landed in some alien world. I can't say what that's like, as I've never worked anywhere else and exhibit Stockholm Syndrome.
I can give you one tip - if you're going to the bathroom, check with the Bathroom MRC if you're required to wipe from front-to-back or back-to-front.
Again you fail to understand the problem.
Intel's PC is obsolete.
Apple and Android vendors make a processor (that runs in smartphones and tablets). This is superior to Intel's offerings. Not in speed, but in capability. You can do more things with greater convenience with these mobile computers. The few use cases that are still PC only are only superficially exclusive. All it takes is a docking station and you have replicated all of the PC use cases.
Mobile computing is the dominant computing platform due to SCALE. At 10x PC volumes, all of the innovation will happen there. All the developers write mobile software FIRST. All of the supply chain efficiencies are built around the mobile Shenzhen infrastructure (instead of the Taiwanese PC infrastructure). Computing dominance has always followed the volume over the course of history due to scale. Scale enables you to grow and be more efficient than your competitors. Watch as the foundries pass Intel based on this volume gap. Watch as Apple and others continue to each the wintel PC's lunch.
It's already happening. It's amazing that people that work Intel are not aware of these basic trends.
@ifpq - Intel's competitive advantage has always been speed. Intel stays one generation ahead of competitors. With scaling slowing down, and likely stopping at 10 nm*, Intel will soon be caught by a pack of wolves hungry for blood. If all companies have the same technology, how does Intel stand out?
@1mfw - one way to revive a declining product is to improve it.** This was actually Skaugen's strategy. Another way to revive it is to lower its price. Yet another way is to diversify it into new markets. Intel may end up as the Coca Cola of microprocessors, but that is a sustainable business model. Intel has played with several of these, but always gives up too early.
Your reference to faster horses and buggy whips*** is poorly thought through. Horses and horse-drawn carriages were completely replaced by automobiles. Super-8 movie camera were replaced by video cameras. Film cameras were replaced by digital cameras. What, exactly, is going to replace a microprocessor? Nano-scale abacasses? No, microprocessors will be around for the foreseeable future.
Home users have augmented their PCs with mobile devices (phones, tablets). They have no reason to upgrade their PCs and laptops. Their refresh time has increased -- this causes near and intermediate term declines in volume. Eventually, they will replace. If PCs were improved, they might be motivated to replace sooner. Their use of mobile devices drives server chip sales.
Businesses will always need PCs. They could go back to dumb terminals - but that drives server chip sales.
- Maybe down to 4 nm after a long time.
** Not faster USB speed. Enough with the USB speed already!
*** You can still buy buggy whips.
Setting up a different culture is great, but without a specific plan of action, you'll just be drowning on the titanic with slightly nicer rooms.
Yes it is that simple. Intel needs to leverage their strengths to come up with a product to mitigate the decline in PCs.
So far - crickets from the peanut gallery over here.
"Anything and anyone not the party line is simply beaten out or cast aside."
I was actually recruited to Intel as a senior external person (along with several other senior, external people), I thought at least (and was told when I was interviewing) to bring new ideas, customer-orientation and change.
In less than two years nearly everyone hired in that group, except of course, the least competent, most political one (who happens to be female) has been driven away, quit or ISP'd. The others are just waiting to vest and will be gone.
There are people out there - or at least were before ACT - who saw the promise of working at Intel to do new and exciting things. To write the next chapter. I concluded, though, that the organization from BK and the board down has no idea what to do with experienced, successful new people.
The culture is just toxic and exceedingly hostile for people from "outside." I've seen the people promoted into the positions opened by ACT and it's sadly more of the same: TAs / pets, powerpoint jockeys, sharp-elbowed insiders and cronies. The internal bloodletting that's going on to select replacements and fill departures will further damage morale and motivation.
@1cie got it right. I saw four CEOs and many managers of old and after the Andy times under CRB, PSO and finally BK both the senior and all levels of management has a dearth and lacking any truly passion, vision and innovative thinking. Anything and anyone not the party line is simply beaten out or cast aside.
"Companies that make wrong or late product or market decisions but have strong, resilient cultures and able leadership (at all levels) - like Intel of the past - can recover, re-invent themselves and thrive again."
Intel today lacks these characteristics AND is in a declining business position."
There is no silver (product or market) bullet that will instantly turn Intel around. That's the point.
It would be great if the answer was that simple; but it's not.
Companies that make wrong or late product or market decisions but have strong, resilient cultures and able leadership (at all levels) - like Intel of the past - can recover, re-invent themselves and thrive again.
Intel today lacks these characteristics AND is in a declining business position.
My take is that without radical change, including massive cuts and replacement of leadership and board, it will remain a broken company. A shell of it's former self.
"@1slk
This is more vague platitudes. No specific solution is offered. Meanwhile PCs are declining for yet another year. Intel does not have time to f@ck around."
Too many management, tons of employees paid those consequences, and I don't want to sound racist but there are too many Indians.
Many of them are well talented, but Intel pays sh-- to them because they have a need to work there (migration issues which Intel sponsors).
Others are Indians at management level that save themselves by giving preference to their relatives and friends (nepotism) instead of being professional and evaluate the employees by their achievements.
That, added to the "do as I say because I'm older no matter if I'm wrong" is a very bad combination and since in numbers, the ones that have that cultural thinking are the majority, progress is hard to achieve.
That blocks Intel from getting into current market business because the remaining dinosaurs keep trying to live in their success that had in the past, but the truth is that they are hurting the company.
@Iq7lNQT-1djv Process development keeps getting more expensive, number of fabs needed gets smaller, after all Moore's Law is about shrinking. I would say there is a lot more shrinkage in Intels future. I think BK jumped into a really really cold pool and is looking worse than George from Seinfeld, LOL.
Volume of x86 shrinks while ARMy is over a billion served. The ARMy is going the way of McDonalds and x86 is going the way of Boston Chicken, LOL
This is more vague platitudes. No specific solution is offered. Meanwhile PCs are declining for yet another year. Intel does not have time to f@ck around.
PC volumes are at 2007 levels and no one has any solutions. Think there won't be any more layoffs!
BK could have tried to buy ARM, but someone else beat him to it, BK'd again...
@1yyv- Do you now feel better about yourself, BK?
The answer to the PC decline is compelling products. There's no simple formula for that other than building and running a company that produces great ideas, is close to customers and has the systems and processes in place to rapidly innovate and try new things.
How Intel is (and has been) led is the antithesis of this: insular, arrogant, parochial, political, risk-averse and out-of-touch.
It is (and has been) a hostile place for people who display the opposite of these qualities, whether from inside or (like) me hired externally.
It's a cop out to say that the PC market is in decline, so Intel can't do anything about it.
Leading the company is - presumably - why the likes of BK, Murthy, Skaugen and so many others get big bucks. No one expects them to personally come up with breakthroughs that revive the market but to build a company with the culture, systems, infrastructure and people to do so for today and into the future.
And by that definition there is and has been a failure of leadership for some time (both at Intel and its Board)
Hi Jack Welch here. BK if you wanted an answer to PC decline question, stop posting it here BK!!
Comeover to Crotonville NY I hold classes there.
With the ARMy getting a huge bankroll all the little thought strategy from BK just got BK'd. I am sure his limited brain is in total paralysis incapable of possible fathoming a response for an even more grave competitive situation.
Simply put intel went from the kitchen into the competitive frying pan, LOL
You all are so narrow thinking, where are the brilliant visionaries.
I have a solution, but again since BK saw it fitting to fire me, and I will now go work for a company kicking it to you guys in the groin.. I'll just watch this like a slow train wreck, LOL
You guys can't even identify what intel's core strength is to leverage and grow with.. lots of empty words so all destined to fail based on the stupid plans I've seen proposed here.
Blah blah blah - all irrelevant.
FACT: PC sales have been in secular decline since 2011 (peak PC). That's half a decade now.
FACT: the layoffs are a direct consequence of this
FACT: Smartphones have SLOWER and LESS capable CPUs and outsell PCs 10:1
Smartphones are simply a better computing platform for the mass market.
Yet somehow Intel has given up on this segment.
Hey Jack,
What does your leadership shuffle do to address the problem of PC sales falling off a cliff? Do you have any specific initiatives to address that problem? That is the DIRECT cause of all the layoffs.
People don't want faster horses - they want cars.
There's nothing else to replace a PC with when it comes to gaming, deep computing, video and photo editing, classwork, and things like that. In those respects, PC's are the current cars, and yes, people want faster ones. That analogy is a bit flat in this case.
The PC has been a commodity for over 10 years (ever since the sub-$1000 systems), but has been in decline for only a few. Always look to the bleeding edge adopters to see where the problems are since they lead everybody else in purchases. In the case of the PC, gamers aren't upgrading because CPU speeds (not just clock rates, overall speeds) have been about the same since Sandy Bridge. Intel has instead focused on internal graphics as a differentiator, and that just doesn't matter to enough people. You either don't game and don't care, or you like games and won't settle for ultra-low quality settings. Couple that with Win8 kicking PC's between the legs and congrats, Intel and MS have turned the market into the perfect storm against PC's.
Agree completely that we need other avenues to make up for PC's. That's obvious. But the PC wouldn't be nearly as bad off if both Intel and MS didn't have this "I can put out anything I want and the masses will buy it because I say so" attitude. Those days are long gone.
BK hopes to get this idea from reality tv shows and 'maker' faires. What a f@cking clown. Absolutely no vision.