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Intel Fights for Its Future

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Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#131

Post by mseebach »

hugs wrote: post #105

Years ago, during a fund-raising tour of Silicon Valley VC firms for my previous company, we also pitched Intel Capital (their in-house VC arm). Their feedback to our pitch was that our SaaS service was "too compute intensive" and therefore they passed..... Intel thought we used too many CPUs?! ..... All these years later, I'm still in disbelief. I do realize that VCs often are uncomfortable giving the real reason th…

> Intel thought we used too many CPUs?!.....

Before your firm can buy a ton of Intel CPUs and make money for Intel, it needs to be profitable. It doesn't make sense for their VC arm to give you money to buy CPUs, then fail to sell your product and go bankrupt.

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#132

Post by dgacmu »

baybal2 wrote: post #127
dgacmu wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify, Dave doesn't head the hardware efforts (I doubt he wants the management headache!). Norm Jouppi was the lead of the TPU efforts. But Dave absolutely is part of it, he just doesn't have to herd the cats. :p To the previous parent, the TPU didn't take five years - I don't know where you got that. But, in any event, I'd argue the key innovation in TPUv1 wasn't actually the design of a specific optimized proc…

>what's "reticule limit"? The maximum area a stepper can expose at the time. Effectively the limit of how big you can make a single microchip.

Ah, you mean "reticle". Thanks for clarifying. (A reticule is a cute little bag -- https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/80/Re... )

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#133

Post by dkrich »

atomicnumber1 wrote: post #129
ternaryoperator wrote: post #4

This article makes it seem that being a major player in mobile is the only way Intel could survive. Mobile is a decelerating market, while cloud and servers, where Intel has a huge lead is an expanding market and profitable. In 2017, Intel's revenue hit an all-time high, as it did the year before, and its stock is an all time high. This is not a company "fighting for its future."

Yes. Although, Qualcomm is also investing in cloud and servers market and if they get successful (rather arm in general) could hit intel hard. What are your thoughts on that?

I think the point is that the article is basing the title that "Intel is fighting for its future" on the idea that they might make a bid for Broadcom to survive. The idea that Qualcomm could invest in cloud and servers and maybe, if lots of things happen in Qualcomm's favor, threaten Intel's server business has little to do with that.

Wal-Mart is investing heavily in ecommerce which could threaten Amazon if they become successful. It's hardly accurate to say that Amazon is fighting for its survival.

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#134

Post by mseebach »

joeblau wrote: post #50

> By declining Steve Jobs’ proposal to make the original iPhone CPU in 2005, Intel missed a huge opportunity. I'm really intrigued by stories of missed opportunities. Certain companies have all of the power then make a minor miscalculation on the future of technology. Does anyone have similar personal experiences that echo this type of missed opportunity deal?

> Certain companies have all of the power then make a minor miscalculation on the future of technology

It happens all the time, in matters big and small. A company takes a bet on something, it fails, and afterwards people (even on the inside) are scratching their heads and thinking "how did we ever think that was going to work?". Most of the time, nobody outside the company hears about it.

When companies are powerful, their power is generally concentrated in a very narrow domain. Stray just a little outside that domain, and they're just as clueless as anyone else (although perhaps with deeper pockets).

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#135

Post by deepnotderp »

dgacmu wrote: post #124
deepnotderp wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You do realize that David Patterson is heading up Google's hardware efforts, right? Hardly clueless and inexperienced... And what Chinese fabless was that?

To clarify, Dave doesn't head the hardware efforts (I doubt he wants the management headache!). Norm Jouppi was the lead of the TPU efforts. But Dave absolutely is part of it, he just doesn't have to herd the cats. :p To the previous parent, the TPU didn't take five years - I don't know where you got that. But, in any event, I'd argue the key innovation in TPUv1 wasn't actually the design of a specific optimized proc…

The TPU is nowhere near the reticle limit, don't listen to OP.

193i immersion steppers have a reticle limit of 858mm^2, the TPU is nowhere near that.

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#136

Post by josiahpeters »

sitepodmatt wrote: post #107
gruez wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

most non-compute intensive programs still are compiled for 32-bit, or have 32 bit versions available. also, visual studio still defaults to 32 bit when creating a new c++ project.

You can even get Slack for Windows in 32-bit, although I suspect you'd hit the nasty 4gb limitation pretty quickly

/s

Some people might consider that a blessing in disguise with Slack.

I'm not sure what the behavior is, maybe best case Slack crashes and restarts itself. You could almost call that behavior a feature of 32bit Slack: "automatic garbage collection"

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#137

Post by baybal2 »

ZenoArrow wrote: post #68
baybal2 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And talking like Amazon/Google/Microsoft only have talents for web programming is short sighted and simply not sure. Well, I am saying that they do obviously spend an ennormous effort trying to do so. To better formulate what I said, the fact that they did acquire some hardware/semi expertise in house, does not mean that this expertise drives them as a company. If tomorrow 2 engineers, one from semi side, and one fr…

> "If tomorrow 2 engineers, one from semi side, and one fromwebdev, will knock at the door of CEO with "I found a way to do things A and B 250 times better, but you have to scrap half of your business plan," a webdev will be heard, and semi guys not." What are you basing this assumption on? Have you worked for one of these companies? Do you know anyone that does? Also, regarding Microsoft, any suggestion that they're…

>Do you know anyone that does?

Surely do, both MS and Amazon.

>What are you basing this assumption on?

It takes a giant effort for ordinary managerial cadres to wrap their mind around of what a web company is and learn the whole model of behavior expected from them. The few who manage to learn some basic technical disciplines and go up in ranks tend to overestimate the importance of their experience.

You meet such people a lot in a dotcom setting. It takes great effort to persuade such person to bother to put efforts to understand yet another mentally voluminous subject that will break his idea of "cool" yet another time.

It is like trying to persuade a prideful child who just learned how to drive a tricycle to learn to drive a normal bike...

BTW, are you from Microsoft?

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#138

Post by lev99 »

gruez wrote: post #81
SlowBro wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clarification: Only 32 but apps. Not 64 bit apps, which the Windows world has almost fully moved to. And I’m sure they would run at reduced performance as well.

most non-compute intensive programs still are compiled for 32-bit, or have 32 bit versions available. also, visual studio still defaults to 32 bit when creating a new c++ project.

Almost anything compiled for 32bit windows would work just as well on a beefy tablet. Laptops and Desktops are, more and more, being reserved for power users and computationally heavy tasks.

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#139

Post by PaulHoule »

This article misses that Intel has really missed the boat when it comes to GPUs; the company that it needs to beat is NVIDIA which actually is producing a rapidly improving product.

Intel integrated GPUs have no place at all in deep learning. They are perfectly good for emulating the 2001 Gamecube and playing classics like Doom and Quake, but they have a bad enough reputation among gamers that if and when they do come out with a discrete card they will have to brand it something other than Intel.

Re: Intel Fights for Its Future

#140

Post by lev99 »

scarface74 wrote: post #118
IshKebab wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but the upgrade cycle won't stay short for long, just like it hasn't for desktops. Give it 10 years and people will be keeping their phones until they break. Also anyone can make an ARM CPU so the margins are thin, whereas with x86 CPUs Intel will basically only ever have one competitor - AMD. They want to find another monopoly.

How many times have you had to replace a PC because you dropped it, left it in a cab, etc.? I haven't broken a phone yet, but I doubt I could keep using a phone for 10 years anytime soon.

With the new anti-theft systems on smart phones I can imagine laptops experience theft more frequently than smartphones.
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