>Which is why I was extremely worried about Intel. (Half of) The lucrative Server market is basically gone.
Right. I suspect in time we'll look back to this time, and realize that it was already too late for Intel to right the ship, despite ARM having a tiny share of PC and server sales.
Their PC business is in grave danger as well. Within a few years, we're going to see ARM-powered Windows PCs that are competitive with Intel's offerings in several metrics, but most critically, in power efficiency.
These ARM PCs will have tiny market share (<5%) for the first few years, because the manufacturing capacity to supplant Intel simply does not exist. But despite their small marketshare, these ARM PCs will have a devastating impact on Intel's future.
Assuming these ARM PCs can emulate x86 with sufficient performance (as Apple does with Rosetta), consumers and OEMs will realize that ARM PCs work just as well as x86 Intel PCs. At that point, the x86 "moat" will have been broken, and we'll see ARM PCs grow in market share in lockstep with the improvements in ARM manufacturing capacity (TSMC, etc...).
Intel is in a downward spiral, and I've seen no indication that they know how to solve it. Their best "plan" appears to be to just hope that their manufacturing issues get sorted out quickly enough that they can right the ship. But given their track record, nobody would bet on that happening. Intel better pray that Windows x86 emulation is garbage.
Intel does not have the luxury of time to sort out their issues. They need more competitive products to fend off ARM, today. Within a year or two, ARM will have a tiny but critical foothold in the PC and server market that will crack open the x86 moat, and invite ever increasing competition from ARM.
I think the irony few would have predicted is that Apple switching to Intel started all of this.
The effort to switch over from PPC and the payoff of doing so was still a recent memory when the iPhone came out, and so they partly pivoted again to ARM, and then smart phones ate the laptop and desktop business, increasing the overall base of non-x86 competence in the world. If Apple had not walked through that door, someone else would have, but Apple has a customer relationship that gives them some liberties that others don’t necessarily enjoy.
As long as Intel is willing to accept margin will never be as good they once were. I think there are lots of things they could still do.
The previous two CEO choose profits margin. And hopefully we have enough evidence today that was the wrong choice for the companies long term survival.
It is very rare CEO do anything radical. It is something I learned and observe the difference between a founder and a CEO. But Patrick Gelsinger is the closest thing to that.
Right. I suspect in time we'll look back to this time, and realize that it was already too late for Intel to right the ship, despite ARM having a tiny share of PC and server sales.
Their PC business is in grave danger as well. Within a few years, we're going to see ARM-powered Windows PCs that are competitive with Intel's offerings in several metrics, but most critically, in power efficiency.
These ARM PCs will have tiny market share (<5%) for the first few years, because the manufacturing capacity to supplant Intel simply does not exist. But despite their small marketshare, these ARM PCs will have a devastating impact on Intel's future.
Assuming these ARM PCs can emulate x86 with sufficient performance (as Apple does with Rosetta), consumers and OEMs will realize that ARM PCs work just as well as x86 Intel PCs. At that point, the x86 "moat" will have been broken, and we'll see ARM PCs grow in market share in lockstep with the improvements in ARM manufacturing capacity (TSMC, etc...).
Intel is in a downward spiral, and I've seen no indication that they know how to solve it. Their best "plan" appears to be to just hope that their manufacturing issues get sorted out quickly enough that they can right the ship. But given their track record, nobody would bet on that happening. Intel better pray that Windows x86 emulation is garbage.
Intel does not have the luxury of time to sort out their issues. They need more competitive products to fend off ARM, today. Within a year or two, ARM will have a tiny but critical foothold in the PC and server market that will crack open the x86 moat, and invite ever increasing competition from ARM.