Intel em crise ?

[XTK]

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews...ss/14793750.htm

Inside the crisis of a valley giant
INTEL AT ITS BEST IN EYE OF THE STORM
By Dean Takahashi
Mercury News

Even giants can stumble. Intel, the technology industry icon that for decades has fueled Silicon Valley\\'s reputation as the center of innovation, is in a crisis.

The aging computer chip maker has spent billions of dollars on ill-fated forays in both computing and communications and allowed a once-weak competitor to catch up. Its predicament is so serious that it is cutting $1 billion in costs and may sell unprofitable parts of its business.

While Intel ponders whether it can reinvent itself one more time, the lesson is clear for all Silicon Valley companies: The task of innovation is never done. A high-tech company is only as good as its last product.

``The company is under a lot of pressure,\\'\\' said Sean Maloney, executive vice president of mobile products for Intel. ``We left the door open.\\'\\'

For years, Intel has built its name inventing the fingernail-size silicon chips that are the brains of computers and other electronic gear. Making computers faster, smarter and better, it has grown into a technology juggernaut raking in more than $8 billion in profits a year.

But over the past 18 months, it has fallen into a slump from a combination of missteps:

ââ,¬Â¢ Losing customers to a competitor, Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale, that came up with a series of clever chip designs more useful for everyday gadgets than Intel\\'s complicated and heat-generating chips.

ââ,¬Â¢ Sticking with its Itanium chip family, which many customers consider too expensive.

ââ,¬Â¢ Getting distracted by its money-losing communications businesses.

ââ,¬Â¢ Delaying and canceling many chips, leaving long gaps between product launches.

Some say the outlook for Intel is still good because it has a track record of fighting back when it is cornered.

``They know just what to do when someone steps on their tail,\\'\\' said Paul Saffo, director of the Institute for the Future in Menlo Park.

But this time, investors are betting Intel will fail. The company\\'s stock price has fallen 35 percent in the past year.

One major blow came in May when Intel lost its exclusive hold on its most loyal customer, computer-maker Dell. Many fear that Intel\\'s only hope to keep customers is to cut chip prices so steeply it can retake ground from AMD.

Part of the problem is one of expectations: Intel is still enormously profitable, but investors have come to expect miracles from the company.

At Intel\\'s Santa Clara headquarters, executives feel the heat. Maloney believes Intel is at its best when it has a clear threat. Sometimes the company will even exaggerate the threat into a crisis so that it can inspire its engineers to rise to the occasion.

``You need to have an external threat when you are a very profitable company,\\'\\' Maloney said. ``It is hard to make significant changes when you are comfortable.\\'\\'

Today\\'s ``crisis\\'\\' bears some semblance to the more desperate days of the 1980s, when top executives Andy Grove and Gordon Moore were running Intel. It was losing ground to competitors making memory chips -- the chips storing computer data that Intel had invented to replace computer tapes.

At that time, Grove asked Moore what would happen if they were fired and a new chief executive came in. Moore answered that the new CEO would get out of the memory chip business. Grove said they should do just that.

So Intel shifted its attention to its fledgling microprocessor, the ground-breaking product that put all components of a computer\\'s brain on one chip. It turned out to be one of the best business decisions of all time, thanks to huge growth in the personal computer business.

The shift into microprocessors allowed Intel to crush its main competition, Motorola, and ride the IBM personal computer to become the biggest chip maker in history.

In the mid-1990s, Intel reinvented itself again. When competitors including IBM, Apple Computer and Motorola formed an alliance called PowerPC to challenge Intel\\'s dominance, it adopted the rival group\\'s tricks -- aimed at simplifying computing -- and won.

Then again, in 1997, when a competitor, Cyrix, pioneered chips for Compaq\\'s first cheap personal computer, Intel played copycat with its own low-cost chips.

And Intel fought back in 2000, when Transmeta pioneered low-power laptop chips emphasizing longer battery life over performance. Intel got on the low-power bandwagon, and its response was Centrino, a combined assault of engineering and marketing that flattened the rivals.

But observers say there are times when Intel over-corrects, responding too forcefully to threats imagined or real. And that makes it blind to new threats that arise quietly. In the late 1990s, Intel critics say, it missed the boat on the Internet. Craig Barrett, then CEO, responded with a $10 billion acquisition binge to develop chips for cell phones and telecommunications gear.

In its rush to diversify into communications, Intel became distracted. Trip Chowdhury, an analyst at Global Equities Research, said Intel kept buying laggard companies, only to find it had to divert its most talented managers to fixing the problem acquisitions.

Intel also thought customers wanted a big leap forward in computing power and responded with an expensive chip technology dubbed Itanium. It was wrong.

AMD correctly guessed that customers thought Itanium was as much overkill as putting a supercomputer in the home. In 2003, it launched Opteron, a chip that balanced speed, efficiency and cost.

The Opteron caught Intel flat-footed. And it set up AMD to exploit the next big advantage in computing -- adding more brains, or cores, to a chip. Now customers are flocking to AMD\\'s products. David Wu, an analyst at Global Crown Capital, says that Intel ``badly underestimated AMD.\\'\\'

Wu points out that Intel still has huge financial, manufacturing and staff advantages over AMD. Intel has $7.8 billion in cash, five $2 billion factories, and 10 times as many employees as AMD.

But the competitive dynamics have never been tougher for Intel.

``We\\'re starting to see a lot more requests coming in for AMD processors,\\'\\' said Chad Stevens, a systems engineer at CDW, which sells business computers.

And Intel must be careful how it responds: AMD filed an antitrust suit against the company last year that accused it of unfairly pressuring customers in its favor. Intel denies the charges.

Maloney said Intel will now ``weed and feed,\\'\\' or prune back money-losing products and focus on its core business. The tradition at Intel, based on the philosophy of co-founder Moore, he said, is that ``you fix today\\'s problems with tomorrow\\'s products.\\'\\'

Maloney confirms that the executive team has engaged in brutally honest debates about the future of the company. Intel CEO Paul Otellini said publicly that he is reviewing ``every inch\\'\\' of Intel for cost savings.

``The worst thing is to start hanging on to things that don\\'t work,\\'\\' said Saffo, of the Institute for the Future.

Because new chips take a while to design, Intel\\'s response has been years in coming.

``It\\'s an agonizing road, like going to the dentist without Novocain,\\'\\' said Pat Gelsinger, senior vice president for Intel\\'s enterprise business.

At last, however, Intel is firing back.

Otellini has staked his reputation on the new power-efficient chips planned for launch as early as June 26.

``If we look at fundamental transitions, we emerge from those as a stronger company,\\'\\' Gelsinger said. ``That is why Intel is Intel today.\\'\\'

bah a intel ja existe a muito tempo não deve ir a baixo com isto alem disso os novos conroe tão quase a bombar e se forem o que se preve a intel vai recuperar e bem  : first :

[Ghetto_Smurf]

Podias resumir e tradizr isso... bem ao que parece os preços vão-se reduzir drasticamente

[GettinBetter]

Podias resumir e tradizr isso... bem ao que parece os preços vão-se reduzir drasticamente

quanto mais melhor, viva á concorrencia

[KTachyon]

Even giants can stumble. Intel, the technology industry icon that for decades has fueled Silicon Valley\\'s reputation as the center of innovation, is in a crisis.

The aging computer chip maker has spent billions of dollars on ill-fated forays in both computing and communications and allowed a once-weak competitor to catch up. Its predicament is so serious that it is cutting $1 billion in costs and may sell unprofitable parts of its business.

A Intel não está numa crise tão preocupante quanto isso... ou tb vão dizer k a IBM está em crise pk vendeu o seu negócio de computadores pessoais e laptops à Lenovo? Para além disso, a empresa ainda vale 7.5x o valor da competição mais próxima no mesmo mercado (aka AMD).


[quote name=\'XTK]ââ,¬Â¢ Losing customers to a competitor\' date=\' Advanced Micro Devices of Sunnyvale, that came up with a series of clever chip designs more useful for everyday gadgets than Intel\\'s complicated and heat-generating chips.[/quote\']

A Intel pode ter perdido muitos clientes para a AMD, mas é facto que a Intel está a voltar ao seu lugar. A AMD tem perdido mais nos últimos tempos que a Intel... até è visível se observar-mos a economia de hj, em k a AMD saíu a perder uns imprevisíveis 4% (!!) e a Intel a perder 1.8%.

Na última semana a Intel saíu a perder 6.28% e a AMD 11.68%!! As estátísticas mensais são semelhantes, contrastando com a estatística anual em que a AMD ganhou mais de 46% e a Intel perdeu 37%.

É facto que a Intel perdeu muito mercado, mas a nova família de processadores Intel baseados na família dos Centrino (os Core Duo - aka Yonah) está a mostrar o verdadeiro potêncial do que a Intel está a preparar para o futuro.


[quote name=\'XTK]ââ,¬Â¢ Sticking with its Itanium chip family\' date=\' which many customers consider too expensive.[/quote\']

Aki está um erro que eu penso k a Intel está a cometer. A Intel aprendeu com a IBM, Apple e Motorola qdo estes mostraram o verdadeiro poder do RISC e implementou a arkitectura na x86 (originalmente CISC), tornando-a numa arquitectura pseudo-RISC (converte as instruções complexas em conjuntos de instruções mais simples dentro do processador). Agora a Intel quis fazer um processador RISC-like extremamente eficiente, e conseguiu, mas o facto de a própria Intel ter tornado o mercado x86 caíu-lhe em cima neste eskema...

ââ,¬Â¢ Getting distracted by its money-losing communications businesses.

É um projecto comunitário... a Intel não vai ganhar muito mais com isto, a não ser o facto de akilo que inventou ir directamente para os seus chips.

Penso que devemos apoiar que empresas destas realizem projectos de evolução das tecnologias actuais sem que tenham grande lucro com isso.


[quote name=\'XTK]ââ,¬Â¢ Delaying and canceling many chips\' date=\' leaving long gaps between product launches.[/quote\']

Eu gostava de saber de onde vêm esta ideia... Os processadores Core (Yonah) saíram dentro do tempo específicado. Os Conroe estão para saír dentro do tempo, sem atrasos. Se tem havido atrasos é na família de P4 que já está a ser terminada.


[quote name=\'XTK]The shift into microprocessors allowed Intel to crush its main competition\' date=\' Motorola, and ride the IBM personal computer to become the biggest chip maker in history.[/quote\']

Lá na altura do fim dos anos 70, a Motorola estava a iniciar o design da sua família de processadores 68K, que iriam ser colocados nos novos computadores da Apple (Lisa e Macintosh), sendo a Apple o fabricante de computadores mais bem sucedidos do mercado (com os Apple II). Entretanto apareceu um senhor chamado Bill Gates que anunciou à IBM que sabia da sua estratégia para entrar no mercado de computadores, e anunciou que tinha um sistema operativo (que na verdade não tinha) para eles usarem no seu computador. A alta reputação da IBM tornou as vendas de computadores IBM mais bem sucedidas k os outros fabricantes (Apple incluída). Em 1984 a Apple lançou o Macintosh com o processador da Motorola e conseguiu recuperar algum mercado, mas em 1985 a Microsoft apareceu com um sistema operativo com um interface gráfico em tudo semelhante ao Mac OS... o Windows 1.0...


[quote name=\'XTK]In the mid-1990s\' date=\' Intel reinvented itself again. When competitors including IBM, Apple Computer and Motorola formed an alliance called PowerPC to challenge Intel\\'s dominance, it adopted the rival group\\'s tricks -- aimed at simplifying computing -- and won.[/quote\']

A aliança Apple, IBM e Motorola (aka AIM) criou o processador PowerPC, que era um processador que se conseguir fabricar com frequências muito superiores às dos Pentiums da altura. Eram tão eficientes que apareceram anúncios na TV com um caracol com um Pentium II às costas. Saíram jogos para Macintosh para além da imaginação dos utilizadores de PC, como o Myst e o Daedalus em 1995. A Intel usou a táctica de simplificar as instruções (que na realidade, nos PowerPC, já chegavam ao processador simplificadas) e conseguiu voltar a ter processadores mais competitivos (embora mais quentes). Em 1998 a Apple lançava computadores all-in-one com processadores PowerPC 7500 (aka G3) que não necessitavam de ventoinhas e dissipava menos de 5 Watts. Eram também os processadores mais pequenos.

A Intel ganhou ao PowerPC no mercado principal (pela aceitação do consumidor de base), mas noutros mercados (supercomputação, processamento de sinal digital - gráficos, som, filmes - e, actualmente nas consolas) a Intel não teve grande hipótese.


[quote name=\'XTK]Then again\' date=\' in 1997, when a competitor, Cyrix, pioneered chips for Compaq\\'s first cheap personal computer, Intel played copycat with its own low-cost chips.[/quote\']

Celeron, anyone?


[quote name=\'XTK]And Intel fought back in 2000\' date=\' when Transmeta pioneered low-power laptop chips emphasizing longer battery life over performance. Intel got on the low-power bandwagon, and its response was Centrino, a combined assault of engineering and marketing that flattened the rivals.[/quote\']

Demorou a chegar, mas são os processadores x86 com mais potencial que por aí andam.

AMD correctly guessed that customers thought Itanium was as much overkill as putting a supercomputer in the home. In 2003, it launched Opteron, a chip that balanced speed, efficiency and cost.

The Opteron caught Intel flat-footed. And it set up AMD to exploit the next big advantage in computing -- adding more brains, or cores, to a chip. Now customers are flocking to AMD\\'s products. David Wu, an analyst at Global Crown Capital, says that Intel ``badly underestimated AMD.\\'\\'

AMD waits, shoots... and scores!! Lol. Mas... se kerem poder compram uma Workstation/Server PowerPC based.

At last, however, Intel is firing back.

Otellini has staked his reputation on the new power-efficient chips planned for launch as early as June 26.

As I was saying... On schedule

bah a intel ja existe a muito tempo não deve ir a baixo com isto alem disso os novos conroe tão quase a bombar e se forem o que se preve a intel vai recuperar e bem  : first :

Portanto... só tenho que estar de acordo com a conclusão final.

[radikal-rider]

Pois a intel deve estar a contar com os novos conroe para recuperar clientes que perderam para a AMD, mas eu no meu ver não será fácil, primeiro porque a AMD deve baixar os preços para os clientes não mudarem para Intel, e a Intel o mesmo para ver se ganha clientes lol, ou seija ambas vão baixar os preços e quem ganha com isso somos nós lol
Pelo menos é isto no meu ver.