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Intel's Humbling

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Re: Intel's Humbling

#291

Post by finaard »

distances wrote: post #288
finaard wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not quite true - the intel projects were at a pretty early stage when Elop took over, and the whole Microsoft thing happened - and the projects got canned as part of the cleanup and moving to Windows for the phones. The CPUs were indeed horrible, and would've caused a lot of pain if the projects had actually continued. (source: I was working on the software side for the early Nokia intel prototypes)

Thanks for the insights. N9 was originally rumored to use Intel, and it was speculated so [1] still half a year before the release. Was that then also switched by Elop as part of the whole lineup change, or were these rumors unfounded in the first place? [1] https://www.gottabemobile.com/meego-powered-nokia-n9-to-laun...

Pretty much all rumors at that time were very entertainingly wrong.

I think at the time that article got published we didn't even have the intel devboards distributed (that is a screen and macroboards, way before it starts looking like a phone). We did have some intel handsets from a 3rd party for meego work, but that was pretty much just proof of concept - nobody ever really bothered looking into trying to get the modem working, for example.

What became the N9 was all the time planned as an arm based device - exact name and specs changed a few times, but it still pretty much was developed as a maemo device, just using the meego name for branding, plus having some of the APIs (mainly, qt mobility and QML) compatible with what was scheduled to become meego. The QML stuff was a late addition there - originally it was supposed to launch with MTF, and the device was a wild mix of both when it launched, with QML having noticeable issues in many areas.

Development on what was supposed to be proper meego (the cooperation with intel) happened with only a very small team (which I was part of) at that time, and was starting to slowly ramp up - but massive developer effort from Nokia to actually make a "true" meego phone would've started somewhere mid-11.

Re: Intel's Humbling

#292

Post by moffkalast »

bee_rider wrote: post #191
autokad wrote: post #5

Intel's 2010 7.6B$ purchase of mcafee was a sign that Intel doesn't know what its doing. In the CEO's words: The future of chips is security on the chip. I was like no, no its not! I wanted them to get into mobile and GPUs at the time. Nvdia's market cap was about 9B at the time. I know it would have been a larger pill to swallow, and likely had to bid a bit more than 9B, but I thought it was possible for Intel at th…

Intel should have bought Nvidia. And acqu-hired Jensen as CEO.

Would that make them Ntel or Invidia?

Re: Intel's Humbling

#293

Post by xenadu02 »

eslaught wrote: post #127
vineyardmike wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not noticing a hugely growing segment that was bringing insane reams of cash to Apple, and Qualcomm, Samsung and others involved is not something I could call astute. And it's not like they didn't notice either. Apple literally asked intel to supply the chips for the first iPhone, but the intel CEO at the time "didn't see it". https://www.theverge.com/2013/5/16/4337954/intel-could-have-...

I agree mobile was a miss but the linked article actually quotes Intel's former COE making a pretty good argument why they missed: > "The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do... At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below o…

And that statement is hilarious in light of the many failed efforts (eg subsidies for Netbooks and their embedded x86 chip) where they lit billions on fire attempting to sway the market.

FWIW I don't buy his explanation anyway. Intel at the time had zero desire to be a fab. Their heart was not in it. They wanted to own all the IP for fat margins. They have yet to prove anything about that has changed despite the noise they repeatedly make about taking on fab customers.

Re: Intel's Humbling

#294

Post by RCitronsBroker »

rapsey wrote: post #257
RCitronsBroker wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the elite class that’s currently profiting from and in control of said country would devastate themselves if they dare. Skepticism about the wests self-inflicted dependency on China is at an all time high. Terms like "on-" or "friend-shoring" are already coming up now. You’re not wrong, maybe all the scaremongering in the west about China overtaking us got them delusional enough in a Japanese nationalist ty…

How much is that elite independent of Xi? A relatively independent elite is probably a more stable system. But a completely subservient elite to the fearless leader is however much more dangerous.

I don’t think Xi is as independent as you believe, but that’s a matter of personal opinion.

I just don’t think it’s very likely for just about any leader putting themselves into the position you are describing. This is a reoccurring narrative in western media, and I’m not here to defend dictators, but i feel like reality is less black and white than that.

Many of the "crazed leaders" we are told are acting irrational, often do not. It’s just a very, very different perspective, often bad ones, but regardless.

Let me try to explain what I mean: during the Iraq war, Saddam Hussein was painted as this sort of crazed leader, irrationally deciding to invade Kuwait. But that’s not the entire truth. Hussein may have been an evil man, but the way the borders of Iraq were re-drawn, Iraq was completely cut off from any sources of fresh water. As expected, their neighbors cut off their already wonky water supplies and famine followed. One can still think it’s not justified to invade Kuwait over this, but there’s a clear gain to be had from this "irrational" act. Again, not a statement of personal opinion, just that there IS something to be had. I’m not trying to say that i am certain that Hussein had the prosperity of his people at heart, but i do think that it isn’t entirely irrational to acknowledge that every country in human history is 3 missed meals away from revolution. That’s not good, even if you are their benevolent god and dictator for lifetime(tm).

Russia "irrationally" invading the Ukraine may seem that way to us, but let’s see. Russias economy is just about entirely dependent on their petrochem industry. Without, their are broke. The reason why they still can compete in this market is their asset of soviet infrastructure and industry. A good majority of USSR pipelines run through the Ukraine. I’m not saying it’s okay for them to invade, but i can see what they seek to gain and why exactly they fear NATO expansion all that much.

I personally don’t see a similar gain to be had from China invading Taiwan, at least right now. They have lots to lose and little to gain. Taiwans semiconductor industry is useless without western IP, lithography equipment and customers. There are even emergency plans to destroy taiwans fabs in case of invasion. And that’s beside the damage done to mainland China itself.

But as i stated, this may very well change when they get more desperate. Hussein fully knew the consequences of screwing with the wests oil supply, but the desperation was too acute.

I just don’t buy irrationality, there’s always something to be had or something to lose. It may be entirely different from our view, but there’s gotta be something.

Re: Intel's Humbling

#295

Post by distances »

finaard wrote: post #291
distances wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the insights. N9 was originally rumored to use Intel, and it was speculated so [1] still half a year before the release. Was that then also switched by Elop as part of the whole lineup change, or were these rumors unfounded in the first place? [1] https://www.gottabemobile.com/meego-powered-nokia-n9-to-laun...

Pretty much all rumors at that time were very entertainingly wrong. I think at the time that article got published we didn't even have the intel devboards distributed (that is a screen and macroboards, way before it starts looking like a phone). We did have some intel handsets from a 3rd party for meego work, but that was pretty much just proof of concept - nobody ever really bothered looking into trying to get the m…

Very interesting, thanks for setting the record straight!

Re: Intel's Humbling

#296

Post by pas »

dchftcs wrote: post #238
tgtweak wrote: post #174

I'm kind of bullish on Intel right now. They've moved up so many process nodes so quickly and have made some earnest headway in being an actual fab. Let's ignore the elephant in the room which is taiwan and it's sovereignty, and only focus on the core r&d. Intel flopped so hard on process nodes for 4 years up until Gelsinger took the reigns... it was honestly unprecedented levels of R&D failure. What happened over th…

>What happened over the 8 years prior was hedge funds and banks had saddled up on Intel stock which was paying healthy dividends due to cost cutting and "coasting" Not clear about what the role of activist hedge funds is here but Intel's top shareholders are mutual funds like Vanguard which are part of many people's retirement investments. If an activist hedge fund got to run the show, it means that they could get th…

there's probably no need to imagine this conspiracy-like machinations of shareholders. Intel fucked up bad and process development is certified crazytrain to la la land.

(dropping molten tin 1000 times a second and then shooting it with a laser just to get a lamp that can bless you with the hard light you need for your fancy fine few nanometers thin shadows? sure, why not, but don't forget to shoot the plasma ball with a weaker pulse to nudge it into the shape of a lens, cheerio.

and you know that all other parts are similarly scifi sounding.

and their middle management got greedy and they were bleeding talent for a decade.)

Re: Intel's Humbling

#297

Post by xenadu02 »

FullyFunctional wrote: post #186
ternaryoperator wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the big one: they missed the boat on 64-bits. It was only because they had a licensing agreement in place with AMD that they were able to wholesale adopt AMD's extensions to deliver 64-bit x86 processors.

That's not at all what happened. Intel's 64-bit story was EPIC/IA-64/Itanium and it was an attempt to gain monopoly and keep x86 for the low-end. AMD64 and Itanic derailed that idea so completely that Intel was forced by Microsoft to adopt the AMD64 ISA. Microsoft refused to port to yet-another incompatible ISA. Had Itanium been a success then Intel would have crushed the competition (however it did succeed in killin…

Microsoft did port to Itanium. Customers just didn't buy the chips. They were expensive, the supposed speed gains from "smarter compilers" never materialized, and their support for x86 emulation was dog slow (both hardware and later software).

No one wanted Itanium. It was another political project designed to take the wind out of HP and Sun's sails, with the bonus that it would cut off access to AMD.

Meanwhile AMD released AMD64 (aka x86-64) and customers started buying it in droves. Eventually Intel was forced to admit defeat and adopt AMD64. That was possible because of the long-standing cross-licensing agreement between the two companies that gave AMD rights to x86 way back when nearly all CPUs had to have "second source" vendors. FWIW Intel felt butt-hurt at the time, thinking the chips AMD had to offer (like I/O controllers) weren't nearly as valuable as Intel's CPUs. But a few decades later the agreement ended up doing well for Intel. At one point Intel made some noise about suing AMD for something or another (AVX?) but someone in their legal department quickly got rid of whoever proposed nonsense like that because all current Intel 64-bit CPUs rely on the AMD license.

Re: Intel's Humbling

#298

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

andrewstuart wrote: post #107

Off topic but I find it weird that Intel CEO does so much religious quoting under the Intel corporate logo: Here's one examples but there's a pile of them. https://twitter.com/PGelsinger/status/1751653865009631584 I guess Intel does need the help of a higher power at the stage.

Almost as if "doing the right thing" requires an underlying moral framework.

Re: Intel's Humbling

#299

Post by bigbillheck »

RCitronsBroker wrote: post #235
tgtweak wrote: post #174

I'm kind of bullish on Intel right now. They've moved up so many process nodes so quickly and have made some earnest headway in being an actual fab. Let's ignore the elephant in the room which is taiwan and it's sovereignty, and only focus on the core r&d. Intel flopped so hard on process nodes for 4 years up until Gelsinger took the reigns... it was honestly unprecedented levels of R&D failure. What happened over th…

i honestly don’t see what you are seeing in terms of taiwans future sovereignty. Of course, China would like to do something about Taiwan, especially now with their economy kind of in the dumps and a collapsing real estate bubble. But when you look at the facts of it all, there’s absolut ZERO chance chine can muster up what it takes to hold their own in such a conflict. Their military isn’t up to snuff and they are o…

> they are one broken dam away from a huge mass casualty event.

Are there any dam-having countries for which this isn't the case?

Re: Intel's Humbling

#300

Post by djmips »

BirAdam wrote: post #50

Everyone acts as though Intel should have seen everything coming. Where was AMD? Was AMD really competitive before Ryzen? Nope. Core 2 series blew them out of the water. Was ARM really competitive until recently? Nope. Intel crushed them. The problem for Intel is the inertia of laziness due to a lack of competition. I wouldn’t count them out just yet, however. The company’s first true swing at modern GPU was actually…

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