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Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

bloomberg.com

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Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#371

Post by scarface74 »

ImprovedSilence wrote: post #363
shakezula wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that’s… why I was upfront about that. The companies range from startups to enterprise, at practically all stages of funding, but they each told me their funding never materialized or investors gave management ultimatums. A few were in crypto, two are in fintech, a few more in various b2b tech companies. But they all gave almost identical explanations: management sees a rough economy ahead and tightened their bel…

That seemed to be the feel in 2008 as well. Lots of companies that were fine choose to have layoffs just because they “saw” a rough economy ahead. Self fulfilling prophecy, or just trimming the fat…?

In 2008, spending was in the toilet after the housing crash. That’s not the case now.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#372

Post by kmeisthax »

gtirloni wrote: post #351
AaronFriel wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel repeated their Prescott (Pentium 4/Pentium D) strategy of completely removing power limitations on their team to beat AMD. As a result, the Intel processors have TDPs and real world power usages >2.5x that of a comparable Ryzen. Sure, they're winning, but at what cost ? The 12900K at 240 watts pulls almost the same power as a 280W 64-core Threadripper. AMD is responding in kind, with new top-end processors pull…

Who cares what a desktop processor plugged to a wall outlet consumes? Seriously, if you care about power consumption, don't buy a K processor.

Traditionally nobody, but the massive power consumption of the RTX 4090 combined with a power-hungry CPU might make people take notice. When your desktop needs a dedicated circuit you have a problem.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#373

Post by ar_lan »

ghaff wrote: post #263
UncleOxidant wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't recall where I heard this recently, a podcast I think, there was a CS professor talking about undergrad introductory programming classes. He said that about 5 years back his students stopped coming in with experience using a PC because they'd only been using phones/tablets. So the prof said it was kind of like going back ~25 years when not a lot of incoming students had PC experience either.

Was talking to someone at work and their kid didn't want a laptop because they were fine with doing papers on their phone. Blows my mind (and that of others) but I guess that's where we are. Interesting situation. I never touched a PC until after college. But, yeah, there was at least a period where basic "computer literacy" was expected. Maybe things have shifted again.

I, and most of us on here, are likely power users of computers, and beyond my job, they are a big portion of my hobby as well.

I acknowledge I'm in a unique situation where I run a home lab and so I have a local cloud, but because of that, I can effectively do 100% of my job off an iPad Pro (I don't want to for quite a few reasons, but I could). If I didn't have my home lab, I could get close by deploying my OS on AWS/Digital Ocean/etc. and have the same effect (though latency would drive me nuts eventually + internet connectivity issues - though this would break my job anyway).

If I weren't coding, I'd probably entirely switch to the iPad. I do all my document editing on it. I do my code reviews on it, architecture planning, etc.

I could realistically see the average consumer never needing anything more powerful than something like an iPad Air. I complpetely believe we will head to the era where the only hardware the average consumer needs includes:

* Great resolution screen * Great internet connection * Great input controls * Minimal CPU/RAM to run a robust, hardened portal to cloud services

iPads are basically beefier versions of even that.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#374

Post by faeriechangling »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #32

I think this is the first major layoff announcement at a big, established tech firm I've heard this year that is anywhere near this size. I mean, there have been loads of "couple hundred" employee layoffs, and certainly a lot of hiring slowdown/freezes, but again, haven't seen anything else near this big, and the layoffs previously seem to have been concentrated in unprofitable VC-funded companies. I know Tesla laid…

Intel has the legend of a corporate turnaround after a huge layoff in its history.

I'm not sure if I can take this as a harbinger of things to come, and I'm saying this while generally being pessimistic of the economy, I think Intel is a deeply troubled business and some deep layoffs were long time coming because Intel was spread real thin across so many businesses.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#375

Post by matheusmoreira »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #250
ghaff wrote: post #246

PCs? Gamers (and non-Mac high-end desktop performance users) would seem to be a pretty small slice of the pie these days. I have a high-end current M1 laptop but I do a lot of my work on a couple of 7 year old Intel-based desktop/laptop machines which are perfectly fine although they're about to go out of OS support. (Though I'll probably use them for a few more years anyway.) I remember when you wanted a new PC with…

Can't recall where I heard this recently, a podcast I think, there was a CS professor talking about undergrad introductory programming classes. He said that about 5 years back his students stopped coming in with experience using a PC because they'd only been using phones/tablets. So the prof said it was kind of like going back ~25 years when not a lot of incoming students had PC experience either.

I rarely see people who can touch type quickly on keyboards these days. Even members of my generation can't seem to do it anymore.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#376

Post by formerkrogemp »

faeriechangling wrote: post #374
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #32

I think this is the first major layoff announcement at a big, established tech firm I've heard this year that is anywhere near this size. I mean, there have been loads of "couple hundred" employee layoffs, and certainly a lot of hiring slowdown/freezes, but again, haven't seen anything else near this big, and the layoffs previously seem to have been concentrated in unprofitable VC-funded companies. I know Tesla laid…

Intel has the legend of a corporate turnaround after a huge layoff in its history. I'm not sure if I can take this as a harbinger of things to come, and I'm saying this while generally being pessimistic of the economy, I think Intel is a deeply troubled business and some deep layoffs were long time coming because Intel was spread real thin across so many businesses.

The layoffs are happening in tech. Not as much elsewhere. This is .com bubble 2.0.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#377

Post by shakezula »

scarface74 wrote: post #371
ImprovedSilence wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seemed to be the feel in 2008 as well. Lots of companies that were fine choose to have layoffs just because they “saw” a rough economy ahead. Self fulfilling prophecy, or just trimming the fat…?

In 2008, spending was in the toilet after the housing crash. That’s not the case now.

Do you think inflation and supply chain issues could have a similar effect as a decrease in spending?

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#378

Post by matheusmoreira »

twobitshifter wrote: post #357
ghaff wrote: post #246

PCs? Gamers (and non-Mac high-end desktop performance users) would seem to be a pretty small slice of the pie these days. I have a high-end current M1 laptop but I do a lot of my work on a couple of 7 year old Intel-based desktop/laptop machines which are perfectly fine although they're about to go out of OS support. (Though I'll probably use them for a few more years anyway.) I remember when you wanted a new PC with…

You can edit 4k video on an iPad mini and run CAD software. The things that needed workstations now run on tablets.

Can we develop software on tablets though? It seems like this is the one missing component. On a PC we can easily get access to the tools to program the machines. Phones and tablets require a real computer to program them. Corporations own the machines so you need to go through them to reach the users.

It's like we've all gone back to the time before free software and GCC. It's a bit worrying that the PC market is shrinking. The PC is the only freely programmable computer on the market today...

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#379

Post by bombcar »

brewdad wrote: post #258
bombcar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel marketing is NOT aimed at customers. It’s aimed at Dell and HP et al.

Then why did they (used to) run ads during prime time TV shows? Was that the only chance to get product buys from Michael Dell?

Because that’s part of the deal. You sell the campaign to Dell and promise to do co-marketing and advertising - how effective it is when 90% of the prebuilt market is already Intel is left to the reader.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#380

Post by post-it »

Moral_ wrote: post #165
wvenable wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has an exclusivity agreement with Qualcomm that isn't doing them any favors.

It will do them great favors when the Qualcomm Hamoa Chip comes out which is supposed to be as good if not better than the Apple M2

Just in time to compete with the Apple M4.
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