While the Intel board was firing Paul Otellini they should have fired themselves, too

Paul Otellini this week resigned his position as CEO of Intel as I’m sure you’ve already heard or read. Analysts and pundits are weighing-in on the matter, generally attributing Otellini’s failure to Intel’s late and flawed effort to gain traction in the mobile processor space. While I tend to agree with this assessment, it doesn’t go far enough to explain Otellini’s fall, which is not only his fault but also the fault of Intel’s board of directors. Yes, Otellini was forced out by the board, but the better action would have been for the board to have fired itself, too.

If there was a single event that triggered this end to Otellini’s tenure at Intel I’m […]


By |November 20th, 2012|2012, Breaking News, Business, Companies, Computing, Phones, Technology|114 Comments
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Intel may be dumb but they aren't stupid

I was already working on a column about AMD purchasing multicore server maker SeaMicro, pointing out what a coup the deal is for AMD, when the story appeared yesterday about an Intel executive claiming the chip giant had been offered SeaMicro and chose to pass on the deal, followed by a SeaMicro board member claiming the Intel exec’s statement was a bald lie. Who is telling the truth here?  Who is lying?  And does it matter? It is my opinion the answers are that both are telling the truth, nobody is lying, and none of it matters very much. Here’s why…

Remember Bill Clinton saying in a deposition that the […]


By |March 9th, 2012|2012|39 Comments
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Intel may be dumb but they aren’t stupid

I was already working on a column about AMD purchasing multicore server maker SeaMicro, pointing out what a coup the deal is for AMD, when the story appeared yesterday about an Intel executive claiming the chip giant had been offered SeaMicro and chose to pass on the deal, followed by a SeaMicro board member claiming the Intel exec’s statement was a bald lie. Who is telling the truth here?  Who is lying?  And does it matter? It is my opinion the answers are that both are telling the truth, nobody is lying, and none of it matters very much. Here’s why…

Remember Bill Clinton saying in a deposition that the […]


By |March 9th, 2012|2012|39 Comments
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Prediction 3: Intel buys Qualcomm

The dominant theme in this set of predictions for 2012 is the mobile conversion as we abandon our desktops for mobile devices and the Cloud. Intel, while the dominant maker of microprocessors, doesn’t have a strong product position in mobile. Worse still, the company has a leadership vacuum and a culture that has not adapted well to change. Deep pockets aren’t enough when you don’t know where to spend the money and you are running out of time.  That’s Intel.

The company is desperate. It needs a mobile product line that doesn’t exist and there isn’t enough time left to develop one internally. For Intel the build or buy decision has already been made (buy, buy, buy) though I doubt that at […]


By |January 2nd, 2012|2012|71 Comments
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For Mobile OS's, Three's a Crowd

I was speaking recently at a software company very interested in mobile apps. One of their concerns had to do with which operating systems to support.  Should they do them all?  Just a couple? My advice was that three’s a crowd.

Technical markets tend to divide like bettors at the racetrack where five percent win, 10 percent break even while 85 percent lose. Turning these numbers on their head and applying them to mobile OS revenue, IOS (iPhone, iPad, iGizmo to be named later) will generate 85 percent, Android 10 percent (because it is Open Source and free) leaving only five percent max for mobile OS number three, which could be Blackberry or Windows Phone 7 […]


By |December 20th, 2011|2011|93 Comments
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For Mobile OS’s, Three’s a Crowd

I was speaking recently at a software company very interested in mobile apps. One of their concerns had to do with which operating systems to support.  Should they do them all?  Just a couple? My advice was that three’s a crowd.

Technical markets tend to divide like bettors at the racetrack where five percent win, 10 percent break even while 85 percent lose. Turning these numbers on their head and applying them to mobile OS revenue, IOS (iPhone, iPad, iGizmo to be named later) will generate 85 percent, Android 10 percent (because it is Open Source and free) leaving only five percent max for mobile OS number three, which could be Blackberry or Windows Phone 7 […]


By |December 20th, 2011|2011|93 Comments
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Intel is fit to be Thai'd

– I’ve been so busy getting my little movie ready for theaters I’ve hardly had a chance to write. So for a change here’s something not about Steve Jobs.

Thailand is flooded, as we’ve all read, and the Thai hard disk industry has been adversely affected. But for all the doom-and-gloom stories I’ve read so far there hasn’t been much attempt at extrapolating the impact of these events past the basic idea that there will be drive shortages and prices will go up for awhile. The real story is way bigger than that.

The industrial park that’s sitting underwater still in Thailand will be out of action for at least four months, I’m told, and possibly as […]


By |November 15th, 2011|2011|94 Comments
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Too Big to Fail

I wrote a few days ago about the Intel anti-trust settlement with the Federal Trade Commission. Those words stand unchanged but some readers have asked for more so I have given the deal further thought and have what might be a better context in which to place it — Too Big to Fail. This isn’t “too big to fail” in the Bush/Obama big bank context in which failing and stupid institutions are saved at any cost to the public. Intel, in contrast, literally is too big to fail, at least right now.

Everything about the Intel/FTC settlement screams of one thing — Microsoft. Redmond’s multi-year nightmare with the FTC, DoJ, and the attorneys-general of several dozen […]


By |August 12th, 2010|2010|51 Comments
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Stupid CEO Tricks

I’m sorry to have been so out of touch lately. The Startup Tour continues, of course, but this week I also have an Op-Ed article appearing in Sunday’s New York Times that I had to write. It is about Google and Verizon and may give a new perspective on recent events between the two companies. Look for it.

This week brought two other news events worthy of comment — Intel’s settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and Mark Hurd’s sudden departure as CEO from giant Hewlett-Packard.

The Intel story is almost as it is being presented in the trade and general press. Yes, Intel has promised in very specific ways to no longer be evil. No, Intel isn’t being made to give back the money it […]


By |August 7th, 2010|2010|90 Comments
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Intel Will Buy nVIDIA

There is a funky dance going on right now between chip giants Intel and nVIDIA and I just want to cut through the crap and tell you that no matter what the companies are saying it is likely to end with nVIDIA being purchased by Intel. Both parties know it and the only thing that hasn’t been determined yet is the price, which is what all this posturing is about.
Intel this week cancelled Larrabee, its proposed graphics processing unit (GPU) that was intended to compete with both nVIDIA and ATi (now a part of AMD). The moment AMD bought ATi Intel had to decide whether to build or buy its own GPU to stay in contention. […]


By |December 8th, 2009|2009|198 Comments
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