Quote:
Originally Posted by
presearch 
Poor Intel.
Upper management wants to grow beyond microprocessors and they keep looking for new markets to make them money. The culture doesn't let them take any really big long term chances so the only things that get the ok for funding are projects that emulate the companies around them that are currently successful and getting good press. They want to be Apple or Google or Nintendo or Nvidia. The execs in charge are not that bright or inspired so these projects tend to be superficial consumer views of companies they want to emulate.
Intel never goes full out because they don't want to piss off someone and lose cpu business. They end up with teams that are 90% marketing, 8% engineering managers, and 2% engineers to do the work, (half of which will be interns). It'll start out with slick PR but in around a year, the old line managers will take credit for a slick roll out and move on, leaving the project to be underfunded, wither, and die. Search for the guilty, punishment of the innocent, and praise for the non-participants. Those involved will regroup into something new and start the process over again.
Thank goodness for Core architecture and the fabs to keep the money coming in.
True, but it's different this time...
If by full out you mean design and market their own iPhone, etc, that's not their business. If you mean build the infrastructure to enable full out design and mfg of iPhones, tablets, netbooks, smartbooks and what have you, then you are right on target. AFA having an app site, well, it has to be somewhere. You need one if you are looking to attract end users as that's what they now want. An app store is simply part of that infrastructure. And, if anyone can build a general platform, it's Intel. Combine that with the number of people just waiting to generate x86 apps, and you might have something there. As Buffet says, take a million here and a million there, and pretty soon it adds up to real money.
You see, it IS different this time. This time, if they don't succeed, they are going to have their lunch handed to them in a picnic basket. And, not necessarily from Apple. This time, mobile computing is just starting to really take off. That's right, it ain't over. Think 4-8 core on chip optical interconnects with the compute power of something more than Nehalem. This massive transition from desktop to mobile is something they can't miss, or mess up.
Smooth
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They should have called it AmpUp to make it sound more hip and radical...
