I think they're using this data to help guide how they should compete with AMD and ARM.
They also say they're saving the RAM used and software applications you use... To me that's about figuring out what's more important to end users; incredibly powerful (multi-core) machines or incredibly efficient (fastest single threaded speed per watt) ones.
Right now Intel is getting hammered on both fronts with ARM chips dangerously fast for single threaded applications (A13) and AMD totally slaughtering their desktop/server market... They have no modem business, and if I was Intel, I'd be pretty fucking scared right now. The weight of the rest of the industry might be large enough now to truly make 'em irrelevant.
As a result, they need to be very, very careful about where they invest resources as the future could be very dim for them...
P.S. I do think: sure they could sell it, but is that data really going to make up for the dip in their actual business? Nah.
How can a company like Intel that was top dog for (at least) 10 years in a row get slaughtered on two fronts? Seems like they should have billions in the bank to burn on whatever they need to get back on top.
To me this is like people projecting doom and gloom for Apple after Microsoft makes better products for 2 years, but maybe I'm missing something.
The landscape that Intel dominated has changed completely and they have not. They're like Microsoft without Azure, without Office, without Xbox... they have one meaningful product: CPUs and their GPU is a six-months to a year out for a v1 which will probably not be very great.
If either Microsoft or Apple had continued to only have one meaningful product they'd both be shells of who they are now.
> Seems like they should have billions in the bank to burn on whatever they need to get back on top.
It's a persistent extreme exaggeration, that's all it is. It's a projection of what some people want to have happen (death to Intel, rise of AMD; if AMD dominates, it'll then be death to AMD), rather than a reflection of what reality actually looks like. Aka wishing it were so.
What does reality actually look like? Intel's profits keep climbing and climbing.
2018 was the best year Intel has ever had in its entire history. $70.8 billion in sales, $23 billion in operating income. Operating income skyrocketed 58% in just two years. The extraordinary level of profitability they're sitting at has only been reached by a select few companies in all of corporate history.
Intel generated more operating income just last quarter than AMD has net in its entire 50 year history combined.
But surely sales must have declined then, given the scaremongering, even if profitability remained high? Nope. 2018 was a great year for sales growth for Intel, fastest growth they've seen in a decade.
They went from $55b in 2015 to $59b to $62b to $70b in sales, after many years of near-stagnation.
Surely Intel is seeing really bad erosion then in its most recent quarterly results? No - $6.5 billion in operating income last quarter. More than AMD's sales for the last four quarters combined. And one of the best quarterly profit figures Intel has ever generated.
Funny that you bring up past numbers on revenue and profit. Andy Grove, Intel’s most celebrated CEO, used to sound a note of warning about relying too much on such metrics for decision-making.
Revenue, which is really about what has already happened, is a lagging indicator of bad news.
I have no horse in this race, but I think it is instructive to point out that after the iPhone launched in 2007, BlackBerry maker RIM would go on to attain impressive revenue numbers in its history starting in 2009 ($11,065m) and 2010 ($14,953m) before peaking in 2011 ($19,907m). It has been on a downward trajectory ever since.
Intel isn't as diversified and MS or Apple. Intel used to have a de facto monopoly on hardware because migrating away from x86 was very costly and offered no benefits.
But now there are tangible reasons to move away from x86. The industry spent the last decade doing the heavy lifting to make their software cross platform, which has allowed companies to not only easily move from x86, but to also create completely custom hardware. Intel's customers are also their competition.
I will be seriously impressed if Intel manages a pivot, because, as far as I can tell, they don't have a secondary business to fall back on.
Intel's competitive advantage was, for many years, their superior process -- always far ahead of the competition. For reasons that aren't clear to me (still an Intel investor), Intel's process advantage has stumbled.
I informally interviewed with Intel's process engineering in the early 2010s and was amazed to grok that they truly viewed Moore's law as a target. The job looked extremely stressful, as a new miracle was required roughly every eighteen months, and every piece of the process had to work, or the whole line would fail. Intel's (and modern chip-building in general) fabrication work is truly astounding.
Intel's real competition is Nature, and Nature gets exponentially more difficult.
I think they're using this data to help guide how they should compete with AMD and ARM.
They also say they're saving the RAM used and software applications you use... To me that's about figuring out what's more important to end users; incredibly powerful (multi-core) machines or incredibly efficient (fastest single threaded speed per watt) ones.
Right now Intel is getting hammered on both fronts with ARM chips dangerously fast for single threaded applications (A13) and AMD totally slaughtering their desktop/server market... They have no modem business, and if I was Intel, I'd be pretty fucking scared right now. The weight of the rest of the industry might be large enough now to truly make 'em irrelevant.
As a result, they need to be very, very careful about where they invest resources as the future could be very dim for them...
P.S. I do think: sure they could sell it, but is that data really going to make up for the dip in their actual business? Nah.