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Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

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Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#211

Post by dragontamer »

toyg wrote: post #206
bluedino wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> i7 2600k Sure, that's the top of the line $300 chip in the days of a whole PC being able to be bought for $300. What if you're on a five year old Pentium G620?

If you bought a $300 PC 5 years ago: 1) you're not the sort of person who buys a new rig every two years, and 2) a $300 PC today will give you exactly the same performance as the one you bought 5 years ago: the minimal gains you get in iron are naturally offset by minor losses in software (which is now built by people with SSDs, so good luck with your little spinning disks...) The market is now artificially segmented…

Not quite "exactly" the same performance. A 20% improvement with today's stuff.

But yeah, its peanuts. A 20% improvement over five years is pathetic. I'm just calling out your hyperbole, in case others didn't see it. Apple had like a 50% improvement in a single generation of iPhones, so a 20% difference over five years is very ignorable.

SSDs and GPUs improved dramatically over the past five years. Well... more specifically... SSDs got dramatically cheaper and retained roughly the same quality. So its worth it to upgrade to SSD or to get a new Graphics Card. But Intel doesn't have any GPU offering, and their SSDs are "enterprise" (aka: overpriced). Mushkin / Crucial are better brands for consumers... even Samsung (although a bit more expensive)

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#212

Post by AJ007 »

tma-1 wrote: post #39

So Intel is cutting 11% of its workforce, Goldman Sachs just reported a 56% drop in profits, Morgan Stanley had a 50% drop in profits, Netflix missed subscriber growth estimates etc... yet, the Dow just hit a 9-Month high, and the S&P500 is now above 2100. The whole market is overvalued, not just the tech unicorns.

If helicopter money is the next step after 0 to negative interest rates, the stock market may be a pretty good deal right now.

Get paid a lot more money, receive double digit gains on your retirement account year after year -- and be completely fucked in the process, ironically, because prices went up even faster and its more profitable to simply hoard things than sell them.

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#214

Post by criley2 »

cft wrote: post #139
adrenalinelol wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ To add to this I'd lay say the over-valuation(s) are a side-effect of our monetary policy being in never-ending "stimulus" mode. On Intel I think the "everything is going mobile" is PR for investors, the PC market doesn't have any foreseeable growth potential atm.

The stimuls mode is a permanent regime now. It's good in the short term, but I do not know if anybody understood mid- and long-term consequences of this new permanent mode.

"The stimulus mode is a permanent regime now"

As a general FYI to those reading -- please fact check before commenting.

The Federal Reserve's quantitative easing program ended on Oct 29th, 2014 (538 days ago!) It is difficult to assert that a program which ended over 500 days ago is permanent.

Additionally, one may be willing to assert that "ZIRP is permanent regime now" too, to tack onto the culture that central banking has entered a new era.

For anyone who did not see that news, ZIRP (zero interest rate policy) ended on Dec 15, 2015 with a rise, and is currently believed to rise again at the next meeting.

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#215

Post by tyingq »

mixedbit wrote: post #163

What Intel needs is some reason for people to do compute intensive tasks on their computers. Today games are probably the only popular type of app that requires abundant CPU power, for most other popular activities CPU usage is low which doesn't motivate to upgrade hardware. Maybe VR can change this?

>>What Intel needs is some reason for people to do compute intensive tasks on their computers.

It used to be that the frequent Windows version bumps had incrementally higher minimum requirements, and would drive the hardware upgrades. Guessing that curve flattened out...I have Windows 10 running on very old laptops, and it works just fine, so long as I have an SSD.

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#216

Post by noir_lord »

fokov wrote: post #165
osweiller wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More computers are being sold than ever before. The market is absolutely saturated with computing devices. And aside from the intense competition Intel is facing, they're suffering the same issue that the GPU makers face -- I once upgraded yearly because the gains made it worthwhile. Now I upgrade pretty much only when something fails. It is absolutely picking a narrative.

Anecdote, I was an avid gamer that would upgrade whenever the price/performance was good enough for my budget. However, I bought almost top tier stuff back in 2008 and haven't upgraded the core of my system since. I don't game like I used to, but it still does everything I need it to do. I used to do yearly-ish new builds as well.

Me as well, I built an i5-2500K system backend 2010(ish), it's still my main home desktop, 32GB RAM and an SSD and it's as fast as the machine at work that is two generations newer (or more correct it's imperceptibly slower).

Things have really levelled out for average loads even developer loads (mostly do web dev, run vagrant machines that kind of thing).

I can't see me upgrading til this thing dies tbh.

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#217

Post by djsumdog »

tma-1 wrote: post #39

So Intel is cutting 11% of its workforce, Goldman Sachs just reported a 56% drop in profits, Morgan Stanley had a 50% drop in profits, Netflix missed subscriber growth estimates etc... yet, the Dow just hit a 9-Month high, and the S&P500 is now above 2100. The whole market is overvalued, not just the tech unicorns.

I don't see why job losses are a bad thing. The last generation of machines was built so well that people don't need new ones. Good! This should be a great thing.

Valuing growth over sustainability makes these backwards ass goals of hiring more, building more and growing. The way this is spun is pretty horrible.

Amazon and Wal-mart losing is a good thing for the environment and society as a whole.

You yell, "But people lose their jobs..." There are more jobs, plus why does everyone need a job anyway? Can people in Silicon Valley not make $150 ~ $250k a year, everyone else get a minimum income and we work together to make better art, smaller factories and a world that will last much longer by recycling and rebuilding and not needing to buy an endless supply of shit?!

"Ending is better than mending. The more stitches, the less riches." -Brave New World, Huxley.

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#218

Post by PhantomGremlin »

ececconi wrote: post #80
anilshanbhag wrote: post #20

One must understand that this is re-structuring. Intel is probably letting go of some divisions it no longer intends to pursue. In the not-so-distant past, Microsoft did an internal re-structuring when Satya Nadella became the CEO. It isn't as bad as it is portrayed to be as most people end up getting re-hired in other groups or take the severance and join a new company.

I doubt with the CFO being let go most people will end up getting re-hired in other groups. Their revenues are down, they're closing up shop in some areas or realizing they need to run some areas with less people. It's actually a pretty big deal.

the CFO being let go

He's not "being let go".

From the article: Stacy Smith, who has been chief financial officer since 2007, will move to a new role as head of manufacturing and sales

I'm not sure what to make of the move, but if they really wanted to let him go they wouldn't have given him this different role.

Edit: just to elaborate, Intel is first and foremost a manufacturing company. Their manufacturing currently has a 61 percent gross margin. You don't put someone in charge of that if you want to let him go!?

But I'm not an Intel employee or close observer of the company. Maybe some Intel insiders can chime in with that they think this means.

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#219

Post by toyg »

lotyrin wrote: post #154
emp_zealoth wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There are too many layers at Intel, and that leaves too many of those layers too well insulated, able to believe it was the brand that won them their markets (not the economics: Wintel monopoly in personal computing history, having the best server and laptop parts currently), and that despite the economics of new products and "solutions", the brand will somehow convince people to buy in. Well, as a gamer, intel (and…

Exactly, even if gamers were a big market, they follow the ROI too. Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is or the way LV is, they sell technical things to technical people but mostly to industry.

> Intel can't try to be a brand the way Nike is

You'd be surprised -- they already are. Their original "Intel Inside" campaign was groundbreaking and helped them immensely in reaching domination in the PC space. A lot of barely-technical consumers will not have heard of AMD or other minor competitors, but they will recognize Intel and buy accordingly. Techies don't care too much about brands, but non-techies do.

Part of the problem they have today is precisely that their brand is basically worthless in the only growing segment (mobile); they must find and occupy all other niches just to stay alive, and marketing is part of that.

Re: Intel to Cut 12,000 Jobs, Forecast Misses Amid PC Blight

#220

Post by cortesoft »

5ilv3r wrote: post #49
theandrewbailey wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

News like this out of the blue is strange. I was pretty sure that the post-PC era was a sham. It still is, right?

How much of your time is now on a mobile that used to be on a desktop? Their core business is drying up.

Yeah, I am not doing any development work on a mobile device. I have yet to go to an office where the cubes are filled with people working on iPads.
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