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Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

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Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#191

Post by darth_avocado »

bane wrote: post #116

Intel and Google share surprisingly similar problems: an almost pathological inability to grow lines of business with new products because they kill them off too early. In Intel's case, it's even worse, they kill them off right before the market would have made them successful. They should own the "things with semiconductors" market, but instead financially engineered their way to focus only on higher profit core chi…

> but instead financially engineered their way to focus only on higher profit

You explained the core of the problem that usually gets little blame. Successful companies get infiltrated by Wall Street MBA types who make decisions for the short term to manipulate the stock price because their own compensation structures help encourage that behavior. Companies, especially like Intel should be built for being resilient over decades instead of maximizing profits by the quarter.

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#192

Post by ldhough »

bdcravens wrote: post #117
itsoktocry wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> losing market share every year for a decade (Microsoft doesn't even seem to care afaict) Of course they care. Windows, at one point, had 95% market share. Do you believe that to be sustainable? Do we want that? No, in both cases. They are still dominant in desktop computing. > offers 10x the performance the average person will need Why is buying something 10x more powerful than you'd need at 2x the price "good valu…

I think normal people (ie non-developers) are less concerned about the performance, as the battery life and the need to almost never need a fan (and keep it on your lap comfortably). You can commonly find Macbook Airs at $800, and I doubt many are buying sub-$400 laptops, unless they are going with low-end Chromebooks, in which the Chromebook vs Windows is a reverse spin on whether consumers are overpaying vs what th…

> almost never need a fan

While I am also concerned about and need the extra performance, this point seems somewhat underappreciated in discussions about the ARM macbooks. Fan noise is so incredibly annoying and distracting and I think not having it improves productivity.

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#193

Post by mike_hearn »

allie1 wrote: post #149
tbyehl wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Intel needs to seriously look at Linux What should Intel be doing with Linux that they haven't already been doing for like 20 years?

Better gaming drivers, better drivers all around. Their own linux distro for hosts that they keep optimizing for web, AI, compiling, testing.

Intel already have their own Linux distro:

https://clearlinux.org/about

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#194

Post by GartzenDeHaes »

epiccoleman wrote: post #102

I live in Columbus, and over the next few years I expect a lot of shakeup to occur as a result of the Intel fab(s) being built nearby. It's been interesting to see the turbulence around Intel of late, given what a huge investment we're expecting to see from them in Ohio (not to mention the huge investment the state will be making into Intel, via tax abatements and other incentives).

Intel pulled the same trick in Washington State. After the plant was built and Intel got all the tax incentives and free money, they scaled the plant down to just package chips manufactured overseas.

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#195

Post by kube-system »

1024core wrote: post #185

And the stock is up.... SMH. Can never figure out Wall St.

Because the people moving big money on the stock market are not sitting around waiting until earning reports come out to make a move. They already knew intel was going to post a loss, this was not news to the market.

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#196

Post by jgwil2 »

whstl wrote: post #62
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because Apple will forcibly kill it after that with incompatible software updates. Um, I have a 2012 MacBook Air (11"), that I use for my low-end testing, and as a Zoom host. Works fine. Runs lots of software. It has to run Catalina (Mac OS 10.15), but Apple still pushes out security patches to it (I think we're up to 10.15.7).

Same here. I still have the same, 2012 11" Air, and it's my "travel" laptop. It had a battery replacement a few years ago (and Apple did for free!), but other than being a Netflix machine, I still code low-level stuff and frontend in it.

How'd you get Apple to replace it for free? I thought all coverage would have expired...

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#197

Post by alpaca128 »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #54
matheusmoreira wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course they care. If they care they sure don't act like it. Microsoft is clearly squeezing Windows users for whatever revenue is left. Nothing else explains the user hostility, backwards compatibility breaks and unending advertising and data collection.

My parents aren't technical and don't see the builtin ads and news feed as being user hostile. They like that candy crush is pre-installed and that Windows shows them random spam news articles that they find interesting. I hate it and use a Mac, but I suspect most users aren't like you and me.

My parents are not technical but view pretty much all changes since Windows 10 as downgrades and annoyances. Things in the UI change randomly for no reason (e.g. copy/cut/paste are now unlabelled buttons placed in an unexpected spot of the context menu), the dark theme is buggy and can make the minimize/close buttons invisible and the few areas not touched by Windows updates were absolutely ruined by Dell. You may think the latter isn't connected to Windows, but you can't buy a Dell with Mac OS.

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#198

Post by srj »

causi wrote: post #170
bane wrote: post #116

Intel and Google share surprisingly similar problems: an almost pathological inability to grow lines of business with new products because they kill them off too early. In Intel's case, it's even worse, they kill them off right before the market would have made them successful. They should own the "things with semiconductors" market, but instead financially engineered their way to focus only on higher profit core chi…

Personally I think Intel lost the plot around the time they killed Atom. Atom launched as a garbage product, then they spent a decade refining it into an incredible combination of price, performance, and power consumption. Then they killed it and replaced it with processors that offered barely 10% better performance per watt at five times the MSRP and they wonder why the Intel tablet market is dead. It's dead because…

They also killed off larrabee right before the GPU market took off. Even if they were behind on it there was so much potential.

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#199

Post by MuffinFlavored »

kube-system wrote: post #195
1024core wrote: post #185

And the stock is up.... SMH. Can never figure out Wall St.

Because the people moving big money on the stock market are not sitting around waiting until earning reports come out to make a move. They already knew intel was going to post a loss, this was not news to the market.

You're not wrong, but I think this misses the point.

Even retail knew they were estimated to post a loss. I'm guessing something in the earnings report was "less bad than expected" in order for the stock to be up 5% today?

Re: Intel posts largest loss in its history as sales plunge

#200

Post by matthewdgreen »

cyanydeez wrote: post #182
bane wrote: post #116

Intel and Google share surprisingly similar problems: an almost pathological inability to grow lines of business with new products because they kill them off too early. In Intel's case, it's even worse, they kill them off right before the market would have made them successful. They should own the "things with semiconductors" market, but instead financially engineered their way to focus only on higher profit core chi…

I believe this is handwaving for Intel. Intel lost money because computing started moving towards GPU architecture and AMD has both beat them in low power CPU and offer cheap GPU. That's all. They were too late to GPU sales.

Is there really a “too late” here? GPU sales today are probably a small fraction of future AI (TPU?) chip sales. Seems like Intel should be racing in this direction no matter how long it takes them to catch up, no matter how unprofitable it is in the short term. But maybe there’s something fundamental that ensures they’ll never catch up?
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