• gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    They focused on cost cutting and stock buybacks instead of, you know, the extremely advanced R&D that making new integrated circuit technologies and incorporating them into products at scale requires.

  • darvocet@infosec.pub
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    4 months ago

    Speculation on my part but i think it’s the same thing as Boeing really. They didn’t have any real competition for so long and they started cutting out the engineers who innovated to improve stock price.

    • Starbuck@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      There used to be a saying that Intel had a vault where they paid out the next ten years of CPU tech, so when they invented something new they put it there so they could make profits and control the advancement.

      Now, I’m not sure which thing they got wrong, but if it was true, I think Intel was probably caught off guard by all the speculative execution security issues and the GPU revolution (blockchain and AI).

    • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
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      4 months ago

      Nokia is another example. They were leading in mobile tech, only to struggle keeping up with smart phones.

      They’re so heavily optimized in old tech they can’t adapt to new tech.

      • Teknikal@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        I’d say they just didn’t go touchscreen in time I remember a friend having the first iPhone and another had a Nokia n95 The N95 was way ahead in features and technology but people wowed over the Apple screen…

        • magic_lobster_party@kbin.run
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          4 months ago

          They also did other weird decisions like focusing on Symbian, and then move all their attention on Windows. Nobody cared about Symbian or Windows. Everything was on Android and iOS.

          They were too slow to adapt to the new market, and when they adapted they did so in the wrong way.

        • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I had a Nokia touchscreen smartphone (Nokia 5800) and it was awful

          The iPhone was launched 2 years before that, but I couldn’t afford it, assumed that Nokia did a comparable job. Boy how I was wrong!

  • resetbypeer@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    This happens when a MBA CEO ran an engineering company. Where did we hear that before?.. Something something Boeing.

      • resetbypeer@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        He is a supply chain guy. He did a tremendous job on making sure you need for every single thing on an apple device either an adapter or a repair that cost more than the device itself. Since Tim took over, the only noticable succeful disruption from a technological perspective is Apples M silicon. The rest is old wine in new bottles. For the rest its upselling and people that are crazy enough to put 1200 dollar/euro down for a phone or an 8gbyte RAM Mac. And to be straight, I have no problems with that. But there might be a time where Apple ends up in that same corner.

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          They did an attempt at VR, just because it didn’t sell doesn’t mean they didn’t make technically the most capable VR set

          • ikidd@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            At that price, they weren’t going to sell much. What jackass thought people other than the most rabid fanbois was going to spend $3500 on a beta version of tech that hasn’t got a killer app yet?

          • erwan@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            It’s easy to make the most capable product if you disregard the price point completely.

          • demonsword@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            They did an attempt at VR

            but it was a me-too attempt, almost a copycat of existing hardware… hardly innovative

      • Ledivin@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I mean, it kinda sounds similar… what’s the last innovative product from Apple?

        • catloaf@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Apple was never really that innovative. Their business model was to take recent innovations, like handheld computers, package them up all nice and shiny, and market the hell out of them. That’s what sold the iPod, even though there have been plenty more technically superior devices. Same with all their other products.

          • sudo42@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            You’re not wrong. I’d argue the iPhone was quite innovative. I laughed when I heard Apple was gonna take on Nokia. Nokia was a juggernaut at the time. Apple presented Nokia’s proverbial head two years later. Quite the turnover. Apple is still living off iPhone profits 15+ years later.

      • erwan@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        They’re living off the rent from older products. What’s their last innovation? Vision Pro??

        • iopq@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Yes, it wasn’t a success, but at least they are trying. What’s the last Google innovation?

            • iopq@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Why are we expecting Apple to be innovative in particular? None of the big companies are doing that

  • Hugin@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The Intel CEO had always come from engineering fab. This kept the high level decisions made by somebody who understood the product and how it was made.

    Then CEO and the head of fab was caught sexually harassing employees. They were both shown the door. So no CEO and the guy who was next in line were gone. They needed the number 2 in fab to take over fab to keep production up.

    So the board decided to make the CFO the new CEO. A guy who had a MBA was running a chip company that had only been run by engines.

    Profits went up for a while but then Intel struggled to maintain innovation and properly upgraded fab and chip design. Add the increasing skill of rivals and a increase in importance in chips other then server and desktop. which were the only areas Intel was king. It’s a recipe for failure.

    • polle@feddit.org
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      4 months ago

      Sounds exactly what like what you will expect if a finance guy takes over a company. Rip.

      • sudo42@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        The fastest way to save money is to stop spending money. Shut down the business and sell everything off brings in billions and costs nothing. Pure profit and I get huge bonuses! — Most financial/Wall St vultures

  • Thrashy@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    A combination of resting on their laurels during AMD’s lost decade, and failure to retain competitive process technology during the extended gestation and ultimate failure of their non-EUV 10nm node. The arrogance of taking their foot off the gas and assuming nobody would ever catch back up to them backfired hard.

    • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is not entirely fair though, they spend more than $10 billion over 10 years trying to compete against Arm, but the effort failed despite they had the production process advantage at the time. To get a better picture of the the Intel effort, they spend more on the effort than the entire Arm revenue in that period!
      But Noohh ISA doesn’t matter they say. 😂 🤣

      • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You mean the decade where they tried to make arm processors and gave up just before smartphones became popular or the decade where they tried and failed to make x86 processors for smartphones ?

        • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          The decade they tried to make X86 compete with Arm on smartphones.
          I have changed “with Arm” to “against Arm” which I suppose could have caused the doubt.

  • debounced@kbin.run
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    4 months ago

    TSMC

    edit: downvote all you want, the fundamental circuit level design is not in question here… it’s how you make the damn thing and TSMC can do it better. intel talks a big game yet continues to fail on delivering any of it. i’ll believe half of what they say when i see it… and it helps that good ol’ uncle sam is helping them out, they’re gonna need it.

    • iopq@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      AMD is rumored to move to Samsung for its GPUs. Samsung basically caught up to TSMC and it’s offering good deals on its advanced nodes.

  • morriscox@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    They put a MBA in charge, which are notorious for only caring about short term results with the most amount of money. MBA + public company = bad long term.

      • erwan@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        I believe they’re talking about the damages made by Bob Swan, the previous CEO who is indeed an MBA and was CFO of Intel before.

  • Bell@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    No mention of mobile? Intel completely missed the chance to make the CPUs we are all holding in our hands.

    • Wispy2891@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      They had a line of mobile arm based processors that were powering windows mobile devices but they sold that division to Marvell 6 months before the launch of the iPhone, in order to focus on x86

      • bitflag@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Intel has also made a similar blunder by trying GPUs and abandoning them (they got there early with the i740, then Larrabee). Saving a few dollars by gutting emerging products line has cost them billions

  • TheDarksteel94@sopuli.xyz
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    4 months ago

    Honestly, I’m looking forward to see what Intel can do in the dedicated GPU market. Their last card was certainly quite exciting in its own way.

  • ikidd@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    When they didn’t have a stranglehold on the market anymore because they let their R&D falter, they didn’t have the ability to do things like make ECC ram a “server” motherboard thing and artificially jack prices.

    Intel has been a shit company for years now. They’re paying the price of hubris and everyone that’s been taken for a ride by them is leaving now that there’s choices.

    • sudo42@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      When one of your medium-sized customers felt the need to build their own processor design team, you’re in trouble. When their new design beats yours, you’re done.

  • mesamune@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Personally I think that a tiny bit of it is the discovery of all the security issues in the chips, making the big companies want to use their chips less or develop their own. The MINIX revelation, the security vulns, backdoors, etc just made them a terrible company for anything secretive.

    • resetbypeer@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      As much as I am an AMD fanboy, we need Intel in this game or AMD will turn into Intel from a few years ago.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Maybe. I’m not advocating for a monopoly, I’m advocating for the death of one. Open-source hardware frameworks are possible, but not with Intel alive. Even if so, they wronged us all. The sentence is corporate dissolution. whap