How is the hyper-competitive, low-margin, commodity NAND business core to what Intel does or aspires to do?
(Intel is of course not doing their best at their core, but this does not seem to be an instance of it IMO. This is more analogous to exiting the DRAM business early in their existence)
> How is the hyper-competitive, low-margin, commodity NAND business core to what Intel does or aspires to do?
Because that "commodity" gives a company a steady revenue stream. The less diversification a business has, the more vulnerable it is in case of issues (e.g. the fiasco that is the new fab process sizes), market demand shifts or other external events (wars, tariff / trade wars, pandemics, economic crises).
Intel is now trading that revenue stream for a one time cash injection, probably to get back on their feet regarding the mentioned new fab processes - but if that bet fails, they're out of all the money they spent AND don't have that revenue stream anymore.
In my opinion this is a dangerous short-sighted move driven by bean counters with next-quarterly-only incentives...
Going all in on your core business is risky, but I wouldn't call it short sighted. It seems more like being committed to you technical decisions, and deciding "If we can't make it here, whats the sense in even staying around".
Poking around it looks like Intel announced a plan for $10 billon worth of stock buybacks recently. If that's true this isn't "going all in on your core business" and instead more like going all in on your share price.
"For Intel, this transaction allow us to further prioritize our investments in differentiated technology ... and deliver attractive returns to our stockholders."
It's also about financial engineering, financial engineers proselytise people into believing the idea that all business of a company need to be in a single profitability band, or the financial magical doom will come.
