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Intel To Slash Prices Up To 60% 227

Posted by Zonk from the desperate-times dept.
Chuan-kai Lin writes "According to Bloomberg, Intel will slash product prices by up to 60% in order to regain market share captured by AMD." From the article: "Intel said it will reduce prices of faster dual-core chips by about 15 percent, according to Alex Lin, a product marketing manager at Micro-Star, Taiwan's third-largest maker of motherboards, which connect electronic parts in computers ... Shares of Intel have fallen 33 percent since Otellini succeeded Craig Barrett in May last year. Advanced Micro's stock has gained 77 percent during the same period. Intel fell 31 cents to $17.08 at 12:06 p.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. Advanced Micro dropped $1.55, or 5.5 percent, to $26.45 on concerns that Intel will lower prices."
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Intel To Slash Prices Up To 60% More

Intel To Slash Prices Up To 60%

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  • My god (Score:4, Insightful)

    by thePig ( 964303 ) <rajmohan_h @ y a h oo.com> on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:15PM (#15497299) Journal
    Does this mean, I was paying up to 160% more than what I should have, till now?
    Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

    • Re:My god (Score:5, Informative)

      by cnettel ( 836611 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:18PM (#15497318)
      No, only 150 % more. (100 - 60 = 40, 100 / 40 = 2.5, (2.5 - 1) * 100 = 150)

      • Re:My god (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Neoncow ( 802085 )
        So technically, original poster is correct. They said up to 160% more and 150% is well within that bound.

        <Wanders back to algorithms assignment ;)>

    • Re:My god (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SolusSD ( 680489 )
      no.. it means if a chip costs $100 now, it'll cost as little as $40 after the price drop. In this case you are paying 250% of the new price, or 150% more.

    • Re:My god (Score:3, Insightful)

      by aristotle-dude ( 626586 )
      No, you were paying the price that the market could bare. Now Intel is sacrificing some of their profitablity in order to regain market share from AMD.

      • Re:My god (Score:3, Insightful)

        by morethanapapercert ( 749527 )
        which of course means that once they have enough of the market back in the palm of their hand, it'll be time to resume squeezing......
      • Which is, of course, completely and utterly anti-competitive in this case.

        • Re:My god (Score:3, Informative)

          by samkass ( 174571 )
          Which is, of course, completely and utterly anti-competitive in this case.

          Um, no, actually it's virtually the definition of competitive. You know, competition leading to lower prices. If AMD can compete, they will, and consumers will win.

      • Re:My god (Score:3, Funny)

        by PitaBred ( 632671 )
        A bare market? Sounds fun... don't think my girlfriend would appreciate me "appreciating" the wares, though...

      • Bear (Score:2, Redundant)

        by soloport ( 312487 )
        No, you were paying the price that the market could bare.

        So... Sould they keep that price up, the market would be completely exposed ?




        Me thinks you mean "bear" ;-)


    • Re:My god (Score:3, Informative)

      by stinerman ( 812158 )
      To be philosophical, it depends if you believe in the labor theory of value [wikipedia.org] or the subjective theory of value [wikipedia.org]. If the former, you're still being had; if the latter, then by definition you can never pay "more that what you should have".
      • To be philosophical, it depends if you believe in the labor theory of value

        In order to believe in the value of labor theory, you have to deny the value of capital. As it says in the "Applicability of LTV" section, describing the value of land (just one example of capital) is problematic with this theory. Or if you believe in socialism, you believe that the government should own all capital and determine it's best use. The capitalist philosophy is that the government cannot make the best decisions about t
        • The thing that most suprises me about LTV is that Adam Smith was a believer in it. Marx was, too, but both had different interpretations of what it meant. For Marx, if I was paid $1 to make 10 widgets to be sold at $1 each, I was essentially robbed of $9.90.

          The capitalist philosophy is that the government cannot make the best decisions about the use of capital and that it should be left up to the free market.

          Capitalism and free markets are not synonamyous. I didn't really want to get off topic, but read
          • For Marx, if I was paid $1 to make 10 widgets to be sold at $1 each, I was essentially robbed of $9.90.

            If that's accurate, Marx was an idiot. Those $1 widgets are only worth $1 if you can get them to customers. Otherwise they're worth $0. I hope and pray there's more to it than that...

            • Re:My god (Score:3, Informative)

              by stinerman ( 812158 )
              If I recall my political science classes correctly...

              I own a factory that makes widgets. At the end of the day, my labor costs are $100. I also sold all the widgets made that day, (assume they are made to order) for $1000. My profit (neglecting other overhead) is $900. Marx believed that any profit made was essentially labor (read: money) that was stolen from the worker. By his definition, profit is theft.

              The labor theory of value says that an item has an objective value. For Marx, the processor in yo

              • For Marx, the processor in your PC has an exact, objective value which can be derived by summing all labor costs directly involved in making the processor.

                But like, that has never been true. People have been haggling since time began. Besides which, what's a labor cost? Typically it's how much you pay your help. You could pay them more, but you don't, because they'll work for n dollars.

                If you sell it for more than that, you are essentially committing theft by underpaying the workers who made it (says

    • Re:My god (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Surt ( 22457 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @05:40PM (#15497971) Homepage Journal
      No, it means you already bought your chip. Prices change. No doubt if you bought a pentium 1 on the day it was released all those years ago for $600 you're feeling like a real rube now that you can get them essentially for free?

      Just accept that you amortized the higher price you paid with the additional CPU cycles you got by not waiting.

  • Cheaper Macs? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by irablum ( 914844 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:16PM (#15497308)
    Does this mean even cheaper macs are forthcoming?

    Ira

    • Quite Possibly (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WombatControl ( 74685 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:26PM (#15497392)

      It will either mean cheaper Macs, or Macs with more features for the same price.

      Remember that Apple is not a company that tries (too hard) to compete for the bottom end of the market. Even the Mac mini isn't designed to compete with a bargain-basement Dell. Apple might very well cut their prices with cheaper chips, or they might sweeten the deal with larger hard drives, making the low-end mini use a Core Duo rather than a Core Solo, etc.

      However, as a Mac owner and someone who's looking to replace an iBook with a MacBook (Pro) in the near future, this is good news indeed.

      • It will either mean cheaper Macs, or Macs with more features for the same price.

        Or another yacht for Steve.
      • there is a significant price gap between the lowest end Pro and Macbook. This could help Apple exploit it by offering a more versions of the systems in Rev2 by using a wider variety of speeds. Sure more RAM might sneak in but I think with the new line of chips Intel is coming out it opens the possibility of filling the gap.

    • Re:Cheaper Macs? (Score:5, Informative)

      by anaesthetica ( 596507 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:28PM (#15497413) Homepage Journal
      Does this mean even cheaper macs are forthcoming?

      No, but it does mean that Apple's margin's will grow slightly larger. I'm sure that as a loyal Apple-user that will warm your heart. It warms mine. Yay!

    • No, it means even higher profit margins for Apple.

    • Macs don't use Pentiums. 1 faster Core Duo coming. (Score:5, Informative)

      by MojoStan ( 776183 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @08:25PM (#15499018)
      From TFA:

      the world's biggest computer-chip maker plans to reduce prices on Pentium processors by as much as 60 percent...

      Intel officials told them the price cuts will start July 23...

      Intel said it will reduce prices of faster dual-core chips by about 15 percent... Intel also told him that it plans to lower Pentium prices by 60 percent.

      TFA doesn't say specifically which Intel CPUs will get the big price cuts ("as much as 60 percent"), but I think it's pretty obvious that they're talking about the Pentium D and Pentium 4 processors, which Apple does not and will not use in their Macs. The smaller price cuts ("about 15 percent") is probably Core Duo because Intel plans to introduce a faster model (2.33GHz) on June 25 [dailytech.com].

      The big price cuts will supposedly start on July 23, which is also the day Conroe (LGA775 Core 2 Duo for desktops) will be introduced. Conroe will be replacing the current Pentium D and Pentium 4 processors, and eventually Celeron D (Apple will not use any of these CPUs). Compared to Conroe, the current high-end Pentium D will look like a mid range CPU. The mid-range Pentium 4 will look like a low-end CPU. The big price cuts will look appropriate. Note that Pentium D, Pentium 4, and Celeron D will work in Core 2 Duo desktop motherboards.

      Apple so far has only used Yonah-based Core Duo and Core Solo, which don't use the same chipsets and sockets as Core 2 Duo for desktops. Core 2 Duo for notebooks will not be introduced until late August at the earliest, so I'm sure the big price cuts will not apply to Yonah CPUs. The smaller price cut mentioned in TFA (15 percent) makes sense because a 2.33GHz Core Duo will be introduced on June 25. This new fastest Core Duo should be priced about the same as the current fastest model (2.16GHz) and the second-fastest model is usually about 15 percent cheaper than the fastest.

  • finally (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ystar ( 898731 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:17PM (#15497313)
    It's about time! Intel has been gouging prices for too long. AMD's chips have repeatedly performed better than Intel's chips at a lower cost. It's good to see Intel learning from their mistakes, and the new Conroe and Merom architechtures have a lot of promise in them. (Lower prices are only going to make the R&D budget tighter, though, which will continue to hurt Intel even more in the long run.)

  • Fantastic! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rob T Firefly ( 844560 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:18PM (#15497314) Homepage Journal
    This is just what I've been hoping for! Thank you, Intel, for addressing my needs as a consumer and forcing AMD to drop the prices on those Athlon 64s I love so very very much.

  • capitalism! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 ) <aaaaaNO@SPAMSPAM.yahoo.com> on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:19PM (#15497328) Journal
    yay! capitalism! good.

  • I have to wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Conspiracy_Of_Doves ( 236787 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:21PM (#15497342)
    I have to wonder how Intel is going to rationalize it when people STILL choose AMD over Intel.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • The vast majority of people purchase a PC on brand, not what CPU it has. As such, Intel will have to rationalize with it's vendors, NOT the public.


        That's not all there is to it. Intel practically invented end-user microchip marketing. With the old Intel Inside campaign, ordinary people went from wanting an "IBM" or a "PC" to wanting a "Pentium". People do purchase PCs on brand, but it might well be the brand of the CPU.

    • Re:I have to wonder (Score:5, Informative)

      by manno ( 848709 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:51PM (#15497604)
      Not everyone's a zealot some of us use AMD chips simply because they're faster, run cooler, and suck less juice than P4's. Conroe looks to have adressed these issues, I was going to buy a opty 165 last week, for $325, but then I saw that Intel was scheduled to relese the better performing Conroe next month at some highly competative prices.

      1.86GHz/2M for $183
      2.13GHz/2M for $224
      2.40GHz/4M for $316

      Those were the prices posted before this anouncement, I hope they have dropped further. Even if they havn't I'm eyeing that 2.4 with the 4MB cahce HARD. I would gladly pay an extra $80-$90(CPU+Mobo) next month, than get an opty 165 this month that will suck more juice, and be significantly slower. I'm not loyal to any corperation, I'm going to put my money where it will give me the best return on investment...

      • Re:I have to wonder (Score:3, Interesting)

        by gerilart ( 825523 )
        There is no way you going to be able to buy Conroe next month. Maybe for Xmas, when 25% of intel production is going to be Conroe. And the reatail price is going to higher due to inavailability.
    • Why would you say that people STILL will choose AMD over INTEL?

      When the cost goes down, unless AMD cuts costs (they started doing it now), majority of people will NOT choose AMD over intel.

      People who are undecided would now go for INTEL.
      What the heck, even AMD zealots might now sing a different tune.

      Money rules the market.

  • Today's a good day to buy AMD stock, then! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by larsoncc ( 461660 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:21PM (#15497345) Homepage
    Hey, news that Intel is dropping prices a bit doesn't change the near-to-mid term outlook for AMD. They produce some of gaming's monster chips, and power users know that. They continue to establish high profile deals, and they're still leading the move to 64 bit.

    Jeez, a buck and a half off of shares. Buy!

    (what do you think?)

  • Too late (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sidfaiwu ( 901221 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:22PM (#15497353)
    AMD has already captured this share of the market (me). Their chips have provided my home assembled computers with excelent processing power, no glitches, and at a lower cost.

  • Some Other Suggestions For Intel (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Ok, that's a start. No one wants your chips anymore, drop the prices.

    Some other things for you Intel guys to try:

    1) Start leveraging your compiler to inflate SPEC scores - special case and hardcode as many parts of SPEC as you can

    2) Keep adding more cache so more synthetic benchmarks fit completely in high speed memory to inflate those SPEC scores

    3) Dump truckloads and truckloads of cash on x86 hardware sites

    4) Leverage Steve Jobs - there is no limit to how much he will lie about performance - you saved his
    • Heh, don't think that Intel is the only one that tries to optimize SPEC scores, although if you WRITE SPEC to favor your chip... I have an AMD manual on compiler options and switches to use for best performance with AMD64 applications, and on the last pages, it has the GCC switches to compile SPEC2000 with to give the highest scores possible with the chip.

    • Re:Some Other Suggestions For Intel (Score:5, Informative)

      by DrDitto ( 962751 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @05:06PM (#15497709)
      2) Keep adding more cache so more synthetic benchmarks fit completely in high speed memory to inflate those SPEC scores

      LOL! Now we criticize Intel for their superior SRAM technology (Intel can fit twice as much cache capacity as AMD for the same chip area). Server workloads see much higher working sets than SPEC. Even assuming you have AMD's fast on-chip memory controller, every cache miss will result in the processor spending 50+ nanoseconds doing nothing (the instruction window will fill up in no time). With a 3-issue superscalar at 3GHz, this is ~ 450 lost opportunities to retire an instruction.

      So yeah Intel, keep adding more cache "to inflate those SPEC scores".
    • 1) Done.
      2) Done.
      3) Done.

      Hell, 4 is the only option left!

  • Sounds Alright But... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Valthan ( 977851 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:25PM (#15497388)
    If they are doing it to capture the AMD market I think that it is going to fail because those of us on this side of the fence are here for more reasons than the "Hey, its cheaper... right?!" crowd. This will however be amazing if the price drop makes its way into the Macs, I have wanted one since they get their upgrade but I can't justify the cost...
    • I'm under the impression that they're dropping the price in order to move
      chips that they're currently paying to store. They need to flush out the
      channel before the new chips hit the market otherwise they'll be undersold
      by their own product.
      • I think you're spot on. I heard Hector Ruiz recently talking (on CNBC I think) about how Intel had lots of inventory to move, and how it's and advantage for AMD to not have so much old stock to push out the door.

  • Price cut or garage sale? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gadzinka ( 256729 ) <rrw@hell.pl> on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:27PM (#15497408) Journal
    I'm too lazy to RTFA (hey, this is /. ;), but isn't the price cut the same I've read couple of days ago, which basically boiled down to cleaning up inventory of crappy Netburst processors (a.k.a. Pentium D) in order to focus on PentiumPro-derived Core architecture? Yeah, go buy yourself dual core netburst processor. With both cores communicating via external, shared FSB...

    Gawd, I was afraid that Intel would never put to sleep this monstrosity...

    Robert
    • If the prices drop sufficiently, it might be worth it. BTW, your sig is goofy, because nslookup is deprecated. You should now be using 'host' or 'dig'. And if you are willing to spell out bofh, you aren't one; if you have to explain what it is, your readers won't get it anyway. </ot>

  • The prices drops are for the P4 (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ajiva ( 156759 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:30PM (#15497425)
    Notice that the price drops are the same day as when Core 2 Duo is released (July 23rd), that means
    the price drops are on the older P4s. That's great if you don't mind getting a P4, but Intel is doing what any other company would do. Drop prices on older products to clear out space for newer ones. Makes sense.
    • Yeah... amazing at how the obvious is completely ignored. This price drop is *obviously* to get rid of any inventory of chips that no one would otherwise buy because of the release of Core2. Price drops on P4s have little to do with "regaining marketshare", they are to cut losses of shelved inventory.

  • Drop prices TO instead of BY please. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Vo0k ( 760020 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:30PM (#15497434) Journal
    How will Intel products fare compared to AMD, benchmark point per dollar now? The main problem with Intel was that it offered worse bang for the buck, you'd have a faster AMD for the same money or same AMD for less. This will certainly make Intel more competetive, but HOW competetive? ...now I expect AMD to slightly cut on their overall profit margins and drop the price too. Just to remain a step ahead. Let the price war begin, likely there will be no casualities, but the winners will be us, customers.

  • AMD's joining the party (Score:5, Informative)

    by adam1101 ( 805240 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:31PM (#15497440)
    Begun these Price Wars [anandtech.com] have.

  • Seems like it already happened (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Wylfing ( 144940 ) <brian@@@wylfing...net> on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:37PM (#15497492) Homepage Journal
    I do my own whiteboxing, and whiteboxing for all the friends and family around (Ubuntu only of course!), and I have always used AMD processors. This has been mainly a price decision. AMD chips and boards have always been much less expensive than Intel. However, I recently did my first Intel box. It was a success, and the price was more or less the same. I was pretty impressed, and I gave up a little of my AMD snobbishness.

  • AMD is laughing (Score:3, Insightful)

    by popsicle67 ( 929681 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @04:41PM (#15497515)
    Intel could give the damned things away and I'll still buy AMD. Along with cheaper power the company also has a lot of good board makers behind it. I couldn't believe it when I could build a screamer with second string stuff for nothing darn near. I had been a faithful Intel drone for years and turned my brain off to everybody saying good things about AMD, a bad socket 7 box years ago, so I was surprised at how well low end stuff was doing against intel's best. I got a sempron 3100+ in a biostar Tforce 6100 skt754 1 gig3200 ddr and a nvidia 6600le pcie card. It blows everything away including the dell xps my dad got this year. Intel will have to really blow everybody away to get market share back,cheaper crap is still crap

    • Intel could give the damned things away and I'll still buy AMD... I had been a faithful Intel drone for years and turned my brain off to everybody saying good things about AMD

      So you used to be an Intel drone and now you're an AMD drone? Have you ever considered not turning your brain off or being any kind of drone? You could actually... you know... evaluate the choices and pick the best product for what you need to do at any given time?

      Right now I see Intel winning for most of the laptop space. They ar

      • I guess I just don't understand why people get so fanatic about supporting some particular company. If they make the best fit for what you want, use it. If they don't, don't.

        Two words for you... well, one mnemonic, and one word. Ready: "FDIV Bug"

        The problem isn't that there was a bug in an intel processor. Bugs occur in processors all the time. The problem wasn't that the bug couldn't be corrected in microcode - that happens too, albeit less frequently. The problem was originally that intel said that

    • No offense, but the Sempron is craptacular no matter how you look at it. Does it beat any of Intels newer P4's? I don't think the issue here is the processor-- your dad's XPS must be a spyware zombie or something (any XPS machines I've seen were pretty good machines...this could have changed in the last several months, though).

      I'm not saying that you've not got a good box-- hell, you can probably do anything you want on it-- I'm just saying that I don't see the Sempron beating strong P4's at all.

      Disclaimer

  • This is either fantastic news or the start of something truly terrible. For the last couple of years, I have encouraged everyone I know who was upgrading to go the AMD route for this very reason. Out of pure curiosity, I would really like to know where we would be if AMD wasnt on the scene, still dragging along at 2Ghz perhaps? Now my concern is that at some point the two companies decide to stop competing, Intel goes off and corners the ultra high-end server processor market, and AMD sticks to standard de

  • OK, that's nice (Score:4, Interesting)

    by La Camiseta ( 59684 ) <me@nathanclayton.com> on Thursday June 08, 2006 @05:04PM (#15497696) Homepage Journal
    But can they also slash the energy requirements and the heat produced by their CPUs? Seriously, between choosing an Intel CPU, or an AMD one that runs cooler and uses less energy, I'll go with the AMD.

    • Re:OK, that's nice (Score:2, Informative)

      by Sebastopol ( 189276 )
      Yes. There's something called google.com, you can look up current websites discussing hot trends. Maybe you're new to this interweb thingy. So, look anywhere, or on any techie website (anandtech, tomshardware, cnet) and see that Core 2 Duo power requirements (to be released this month) is way below anything AMD has for then next 1~2 years.

      • Re:OK, that's nice (Score:2, Interesting)

        by gerilart ( 825523 )
        Profve it. Show the link which Conroe has lower power requirement that AMD AM2 x2 3800, 35W. As far as I know Conroe TPD is 65W.
      • In order to be useful we need power consumption estimates that couple CPU and chipset. Of course the intel chip is lower-power than the AMD chip, it doesn't have the memory controller onboard. Any idea how the complete solution stacks up?

        • That's a good question, I don't know, but I don't think it makes up the gap. I can google for some tech docs, but it will still be hard as the intel northbridge (or whatever they call it today) still has more circuitry to it other than the memory controller. Based on what we've heard from the press and tech sites, the Wattage of the Intel memory controller would have to be equal to one Core 2 Duo to match AMD's wattage (I see quotes of 40% LESS power, however real that may be).

          Also, sharing a memory contr
          • The whole CPU doesn't have to run at the same clock. You have to deal with bus synchronization issues whether the memory controller is in the north bridge, or it's in the CPU.
  • This is NOT a price drop but a price correction for Intel since they've introducted a new product line. Sort of like when Chevy does for their 2007 models arrive this fall with their 2006 still on the floor. It's NOT a 'let's get our marketshare back from AMD' but a 'oh crap, we still have a tonne of P4 chips left. Sheesh!
  • For the first time I can ever remember I have a PC that's about to turn 2 years old and it's not obsolete. They have no choice but to cut prices. Maybe I'll jump in and spring for a replacement motherboard for my Dell 8400 which I saw surplused last week for $50. If the P4 3.2 GHz - I think it's a Prescott - drops low enough it will make a nice system-in-waiting for when this one croaks. I'll be able to fend off the DMA nasties a while longer.
    • Well hows this... I have a PC that is now just over 4 years old (pentium4, non-ht 2.4ghz), and runs everything i throw at it well enough to play quite happily.

      All i've upgraded is the video card (Geforce 6600GT currently) and disk space (not required really, but I dual boot).

      Sure, it's not top of the line any more, but I have yet to try running something that was not playable to force me to upgrade...

  • Intel's current CPU strategy:
    Nobody want them. The new CPUs are coming, so that gets rid of your loyal customers. AMD is kicking your butt, so you don't get the loyal AMD customers to buy your CPUs. So drop the prices so that you can clear off your shelves of the CPUs nobody is buying anyway, and you can force AMD to lower their prices. You loose profits yourself, but you leverage your action to hurt your competitor.

    So, what should AMD do?

  • Processor lock-in more important anyway (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Thursday June 08, 2006 @06:21PM (#15498270) Homepage Journal
    as an Intel shareholder, I'm glad to hear this. Now if Sony would just announce a price drop for the PS3 to get Blu-Ray lock-in, I might invest in them.

    For the longest time, Intel shares have been based on the projection of 90+ percent market share - while Motorola has been knocked out now that Apple is using Intel chips, the rapid adoption of AMD by Dell and other suppliers has meant the market dominance model was in danger.

    The geek in me, of course, loves AMD - I have one in my home laptop, and most of our lab's computers are dual core dual processor AMD Linux boxen with dual hard drives.

    But looked at from the market perspective, this makes a lot of sense.

    I predict, however, that this news will cause the non-techie investors to bail out of Intel - more cheap shares for techies like me, I guess.
    • Motorola has not been in the game for a long time, in fact Apple brought Motorola into the PPC game, and then Motorola has spun off their PPC division (now a different company name), leaving apple with IBM in the end. The former Motorola PPC division now basically does G4s for the embedded market and do not have any interest into anything remotely desktop wise. Their reasoning is, that those markets have higher margins and are less interested into a speed gaim but more interested into stability and power co
  • I wonder what announcements such as this will do to the relationship with Apple over the short and long term. When news like this is broadcast to a wide audience, people begin to question their vendors. "Hey, will I get a price break now on the products with Intel processors?"

    Yet Apple's pricing model has always been pretty strict - normally you can count on paying the same price for a MacBook or MacBook Pro in another couple weeks or a month barring any product line updates. But this type of news may ha
  • cheaper iMacs, Mac books?

    I sure hope so.

  • Lower prices are not the answer. Proposal. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Futurepower(R) ( 558542 ) on Friday June 09, 2006 @05:31AM (#15500831) Homepage
    More Intel employees should say in public what they have told me in private: Intel CEO Paul Otellini [intel.com] is not a competent leader. He lacks social ability. He has added to the adversarial management style in which employees are pitted against other employees, rather than encouraged to do their best.

    It's very, very sad to see Intel on the way down. Intel processors have literally helped the world become a better place.

    Self-destructive behavior at Intel did not start with Otellini. Long ago, Intel closed its consumer division because it could not manage it effectively.

    Do I think I could be a better CEO of Intel than Otellini? Yes, I do. I told one Intel employee that I thought of applying for Otellini's job, not because I thought I could get hired, but because I might possibly be able to educate the Intel board of directors about what needs to be done to pull Intel out of its long-term slump.

    First, I would re-organize Intel's marketing, which has become Zombie-like in that it has been minimally connected with reality. Last year Intel sent me several email messages offering an "Intel BunnyPeople(TM)" doll if I would be involved with one of their marketing efforts. Possibly there were those who make purchasing decisions who were not offended by an offer of a free doll. However, I've never known one who would be influenced by such an offer. There are plenty of other examples of the scary disconnection of Intel marketing from Intel's needs.

    For example, I would re-organize Intel's web site. I haven't checked recently, because we stopped buying Intel motherboards. But before, the part numbers for Intel motherboards were not immediately available. To get the part numbers necessary to place an order, it was necessary to jump through hoops with an online registration, and then have an Intel employee direct you to the proper web page. The result was that it was difficult to call a distributor and order Intel motherboards. The salesman at the distributor would offer plenty of choices, but there was no way to know which one to choose unless you had done Intel's hoop jumping.

    Second, I would change the culture at Intel. Business is NOT a place for top executives to act out their anger. Top managers should go into therapy if they need to deal with their anger. They should NOT make their anger a problem for the corporation. But that's what has been happening. I think it was perhaps 15 years ago that I became acutely aware of this. I could give several examples, and I've heard others from Intel employees.

    Third, very important, I would take good care of the technical staff. At present they are not treated sufficiently well. If I were Intel CEO and I saw a floor that needed to be sweeped to give the technical staff a better work environment, I would sweep it myself if necessary. Intel's business DEPENDS on creativity. It's difficult to be creative in a poor social environment.

    There's more, but this is is not a complete proposal, of course. It is just a Slashdot comment.

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