"We have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino" makes, Gelsinger told employees.
I'm continuously amazed that, even at high level leadership positions, this technical-centric view of the world persists. By dismissing what Apple does as "lifestyle", he's completely missing the point and fostering the elitist mindset that products designed to be easy to use are simply "lifestyle" products. To me, what Apple is doing is the entire goal of the tech industry: making technology accessible and easy to use for everyone, not just tech enthusiasts.
If you think about it like cars, Intel would be designing cars (engines more precisely) for mechanics and car modification enthusiasts. Whereas Apple would be designing them for the average person who just wants to turn the key and get from point A to B without having to know the details of how their car works. That's not a "lifestyle", it's an evolution of the product.
Where can I buy my MIGA (Make Intel Great Again) hat? This guy sounds exactly like a certain wannabe dictator. No one can claim Apple has no influence or dominance in the tech market. Whenever the shit hits the fan the first thing the CEOs do is to either blame Apple for their tribulations (Parler, Epic, Intel, et al CEOs)) or rally the troops to be be ‘just like Apple' (Huawei CEO).
So sorry for you Avon b7, Gatorguy, but your objects of love and devotion can’t hold a candle to Apple’s influence on your lives and the design of your precious iKnockoffs. Always remember the quote from the Google Android engineer when the iPhone was announced.
Chris DeSalvo’s reaction to the iPhone was immediate and visceral. “As a consumer I was blown away. I wanted one immediately. But as a Google engineer, I thought ‘We’re going to have to start over.’”
And perhaps best of all, Andy Rubin, then director of the Android team at Google:
“Holy crap,” he said to one of his colleagues in the car. “I guess we’re not going to ship that phone.”
Have you considered Apple silicon is a big blow to intel, that Apple is a HUGE account for intel? Intel used to be on the cutting edge or Moore’s law, now they have been behind the eight ball treading water for several years, it’s hard to dominate a market when another company TSMC is out performing them in terms of innovation.
“ The previously dominant processor giant is slipping into obscurity fast, and the new CEO hopes the company can change course soon.”
That is some grade A hyperbole. Intel certainly has some issues and is facing challengers in a way that it hasn’t in some time. That said they are still the dominant player in the processor world and are nowhere near obscurity. Their closest rival, AMD, doesn’t do anywhere close the volume that intel does.
What Apple is doing is largely irrelevant to Intel since Apple doesn’t sell their chips to the broader market. So even though Apple Silicone can out perform Intel it is only relevant to the Apple ecosystem which is just a tiny fraction of the broader chip market.
Apple was 8% of the PC market in the last quarter and is usually 6-7%, yes they spend a ton of money on Intel but they are by no means a "HUGE" account, the rest of the 92% of the market mostly uses Intel and that isn't counting people that build their own computers. In fact Intel's rise to dominance happened without Apple being a customer at all. So, no, Apple Silicon isn't a big blow to Intel. If Apple made Apple Silicone available to other companies it could potentially be a threat to Intel but as it is they aren't even competitors.
You also seem to be oblivious to the fact that PCs and graphics chips are only part of Intel's business. It is the largest of their business segments but that is not all they do.
Processor advances on a performance level are a double edged sword.
Intel's PC failings have largely benefited most users. I'm still using decade old Mac laptops that are still perfectly valid for my needs. I certainly don't miss raw GPU/CPU performance. The same applies to my low end Intel NAS.
It seems (purely subjectively) that the gap in real world performance from 2000 - 2010 was wider than the gap from 2010 - 2020.
Had the performance continued from the first period at the same rate into the second period, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to make my current machines as productive as they have been.
My only 'problems' have been related to I/O but even that angle is becoming less important now.
The 'lifestyle company' reference is obviously a poke but hardly anything to get in a fluster over. Apple is mainly a CE company now. They dropped 'computer' from the name to highlight the fact that 'computers' weren't the main focus of the company so getting called a 'lifestyle' company is ok.
I think intel is more concerned about industry standing and public opinion and this internal memo is just a pep talk.
ARM is slowly moving into HPC, cloud, AI, servers etc so clearly intel it has its work cut out but it did fine without Apple in the PC space and will continue to do so unless Apple, Huawei, QC, Samsung etc decide to make a bigger push into the open PC market.
There are signs of that happening already of course but intel has time to remedy that.
Apple was 8% of the PC market in the last quarter and is usually 6-7%, yes they spend a ton of money on Intel but they are by no means a "HUGE" account, the rest of the 92% of the market mostly uses Intel and that isn't counting people that build their own computers. In fact Intel's rise to dominance happened without Apple being a customer at all. So, no, Apple Silicon isn't a big blow to Intel. If Apple made Apple Silicone available to other companies it could potentially be a threat to Intel but as it is they aren't even competitors.
You also seem to be oblivious to the fact that PCs and graphics chips are only part of Intel's business. It is the largest of their business segments but that is not all they do.
Your math would be valid if Intel owned 100% of the PC business. They don't. Intel has 63% of the PC business. Another 8% (Apple) is moving away from Intel which will leave them at about 55% of the market once Apple's transition is complete. As a percentage, Intel is losing more like 13% of their business. No, that won't tank them by any means, but it's certainly significant and certainly more significant that you suggest.
He clearly means "Lifestyle Company" in a derogatory way.
It sounds like the current political trend of attacking one's competitors simply because they are competitors is extending itself into business as well.
Attacking a competitor won't get any country or company to perform better. And, ultimately, it always comes down to performance.
Well he is more than familiar with the toxic politics he's going to end up in, so, good luck! Intel needs to replace a lot more people than just the CEO..It's embarrassing to see Intel in its current state.
“ The previously dominant processor giant is slipping into obscurity fast, and the new CEO hopes the company can change course soon.”
That is some grade A hyperbole. Intel certainly has some issues and is facing challengers in a way that it hasn’t in some time. That said they are still the dominant player in the processor world and are nowhere near obscurity. Their closest rival, AMD, doesn’t do anywhere close the volume that intel does.
What Apple is doing is largely irrelevant to Intel since Apple doesn’t sell their chips to the broader market. So even though Apple Silicone can out perform Intel it is only relevant to the Apple ecosystem which is just a tiny fraction of the broader chip market.
Apple’s M1 is irrelevant to Intel in absolute sales numbers, but it gives clues to others about leaving Intel chips.
Microsoft already has versions of Windows running on ARM for some years. If other hardware makers have ARM options nearly as good as M1 on performance and energy efficiency I think many would switch.
What's crazy to me is how many companies discount what a "lifestyle" company can do when you have really smart people with really specific goals and really long product roadmaps can accomplish. Maybe it's Intel that is in the wrong business when it tries to accomplish technical gains while balancing the financial constraints of delivering its chips, which in essence are just commodities. It's similar to Qualcomm. There's hubris to think that other companies can't deliver better overall products if they are able to custom design hardware and software that deliver a product that isn't a commodity.
Intel does need to do a lot more, but they either need to decide that the product they deliver is a commodity (a name brand commodity at that) and that they will never again make the profits they once did or they need to specialize and push the envelope with tightly integrated products that use their chips. My guess is they will do the former, but no one will care that they have "Intel Inside" in their computer in the next 5 to 10 years.
Well, I personally don't see any problem in trying to do better. I mean, that's what Apple did, right? And it's not like Apple never engaged in any hyperbole (the "1984" ad, anyone?) against a competitor, right?
Now, whether or not Intel can match the types of improvements Apple has made is another question entirely. I for one certainly hope so; competition is generally good.
Apple was 8% of the PC market in the last quarter and is usually 6-7%, yes they spend a ton of money on Intel but they are by no means a "HUGE" account, the rest of the 92% of the market mostly uses Intel and that isn't counting people that build their own computers. In fact Intel's rise to dominance happened without Apple being a customer at all. So, no, Apple Silicon isn't a big blow to Intel. If Apple made Apple Silicone available to other companies it could potentially be a threat to Intel but as it is they aren't even competitors.
You also seem to be oblivious to the fact that PCs and graphics chips are only part of Intel's business. It is the largest of their business segments but that is not all they do.
Your math would be valid if Intel owned 100% of the PC business. They don't. Intel has 63% of the PC business. Another 8% (Apple) is moving away from Intel which will leave them at about 55% of the market once Apple's transition is complete. As a percentage, Intel is losing more like 13% of their business. No, that won't tank them by any means, but it's certainly significant and certainly more significant that you suggest.
You might want to re-read what I said. I specifically said that Intel didn't own the remainder of the business, I sad they owned the majority of it and as you have pointed out that is in fact true. Further Apple isn't 13% of Intel's business as Intel's business is larger than processors for PCs. CPUs and GPUs make up a bit over half of Intel's business. So saying Apple makes us 13% of Apple's business is just incorrect.
“ The previously dominant processor giant is slipping into obscurity fast, and the new CEO hopes the company can change course soon.”
That is some grade A hyperbole. Intel certainly has some issues and is facing challengers in a way that it hasn’t in some time. That said they are still the dominant player in the processor world and are nowhere near obscurity. Their closest rival, AMD, doesn’t do anywhere close the volume that intel does.
What Apple is doing is largely irrelevant to Intel since Apple doesn’t sell their chips to the broader market. So even though Apple Silicone can out perform Intel it is only relevant to the Apple ecosystem which is just a tiny fraction of the broader chip market.
Apple’s M1 is irrelevant to Intel in absolute sales numbers, but it gives clues to others about leaving Intel chips.
Microsoft already has versions of Windows running on ARM for some years. If other hardware makers have ARM options nearly as good as M1 on performance and energy efficiency I think many would switch.
"If' Is doing all the heavy lifting in comment. So likewise, if Intel can catch up other cpu fabs they will be fine, and if they can best them they will be better. So many ifs.
Meanwhile in reality Windows on ARM I a perennial joke. To be fair to MS, the primary reason is they pride themselves on backwards compatibility and moving to ARM would either mean dropping support for a lot of old apps or trying to do a lot emulation/translation that had acceptable performance. So one of their strengths, backward compatibility, is the thing that is keeping them from a larger processor architecture change.
You might want to re-read what I said. I specifically said that Intel didn't own the remainder of the business, I sad they owned the majority of it and as you have pointed out that is in fact true. Further Apple isn't 13% of Intel's business as Intel's business is larger than processors for PCs. CPUs and GPUs make up a bit over half of Intel's business. So saying Apple makes us 13% of Apple's business is just incorrect.
You might want to re-read what I said. My comments were specific to the PC processor business. Having said that, Intel's "Client computing group" which accounts for sales of CPUs to the PC market is by far their largest group and larger than all of their other groups combined. As such, the overall relevancy of the business they are losing is unchanged. Though yes, the 13% applies to that specific business unit.
Positive news for everyone. When tech companies compete, everyone benefits, even the companies themselves. Right now Apple has a very strong lead with the M1 and A series CPUs. They have a lot of catching up to do in their GPUs but Apple has an amazing team in their silicon division. If Intel really could compete with the M1, that would spur Apple to put even more resources into their own processors. I see this as positive all around. The only question now is: Can Intel actually compete with Apple or NVIDIA or Samsung or Qualcomm or ...?
Since 2010 for 10 years Intel slow rolled Apple (and it's customers) with 2.2, 2.3, 2.4 GHz!!! If not for SSD improvements in SPEED, we would have wanted to kill Intel. Intel COASTED off the speed improvments of SSD, TB, USB, and VideoCards. Meanwhile 5-6 years into this, Apple saw that their A7, A8, and A9 were outclassing Intel chips AND they were almost able to double the overall performance, with ALL the "silicon & pieces" considering, and said screw these guys!
I mean relatively Intel was giving like 5-10% increases, year after year, while the other improvements, from the rest of the industry, WE WERE NOTICING and now here we are 10 years later in 2020. And it's over man, done. I don't see how you can just sleep or rest on your laurels for 10 years and be like "We got this." Then what snap out of a funk, and miraculously come up with a new (Intel) ARCH and put down 10 years of Apple's work on ARMbe t, like it was nothing?
"We have to deliver better products to the PC ecosystem than any
possible thing that a lifestyle company in Cupertino" makes, Gelsinger
told employees. "We have to be that good, in the future."
This is not a promise. It is a call to action delivered to motivate his employees.
I agree, he's just trying to light a fire under the asses of his moribund employees without setting off a mass panic attack. Truth be told, Apple is, by far, the lesser of two existential threats to Intel's long term viability in the PC ecosystem. Even if Intel puts a dent in Apple's market presence, which they most surely will not do, the threat from AMD will reduce Intel to a smoldering hulk and they'll be fighting to maintain relevance in what's left of the niche markets that haven't already fallen to ARM based solutions.
Apple was 8% of the PC market in the last quarter and is usually 6-7%, yes they spend a ton of money on Intel but they are by no means a "HUGE" account, the rest of the 92% of the market mostly uses Intel and that isn't counting people that build their own computers. In fact Intel's rise to dominance happened without Apple being a customer at all. So, no, Apple Silicon isn't a big blow to Intel. If Apple made Apple Silicone available to other companies it could potentially be a threat to Intel but as it is they aren't even competitors.
You also seem to be oblivious to the fact that PCs and graphics chips are only part of Intel's business. It is the largest of their business segments but that is not all they do.
A dominant market share has never ever been an ironclad guarantee of a company's continued survival and prosperity. Are you too young to know about this company called Kodak?
Yeah, denigrating Apple is a winning strategy. Perhaps the CEO guy is too young to remember Microsoft’s attempt at that. If it had worked we’d still be using command line OS’s and flip phones.
Comments
If you think about it like cars, Intel would be designing cars (engines more precisely) for mechanics and car modification enthusiasts. Whereas Apple would be designing them for the average person who just wants to turn the key and get from point A to B without having to know the details of how their car works. That's not a "lifestyle", it's an evolution of the product.
So sorry for you Avon b7, Gatorguy, but your objects of love and devotion can’t hold a candle to Apple’s influence on your lives and the design of your precious iKnockoffs. Always remember the quote from the Google Android engineer when the iPhone was announced.
And perhaps best of all, Andy Rubin, then director of the Android team at Google:
credit iMoreYou also seem to be oblivious to the fact that PCs and graphics chips are only part of Intel's business. It is the largest of their business segments but that is not all they do.
Intel's PC failings have largely benefited most users. I'm still using decade old Mac laptops that are still perfectly valid for my needs. I certainly don't miss raw GPU/CPU performance. The same applies to my low end Intel NAS.
It seems (purely subjectively) that the gap in real world performance from 2000 - 2010 was wider than the gap from 2010 - 2020.
Had the performance continued from the first period at the same rate into the second period, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to make my current machines as productive as they have been.
My only 'problems' have been related to I/O but even that angle is becoming less important now.
The 'lifestyle company' reference is obviously a poke but hardly anything to get in a fluster over. Apple is mainly a CE company now. They dropped 'computer' from the name to highlight the fact that 'computers' weren't the main focus of the company so getting called a 'lifestyle' company is ok.
I think intel is more concerned about industry standing and public opinion and this internal memo is just a pep talk.
ARM is slowly moving into HPC, cloud, AI, servers etc so clearly intel it has its work cut out but it did fine without Apple in the PC space and will continue to do so unless Apple, Huawei, QC, Samsung etc decide to make a bigger push into the open PC market.
There are signs of that happening already of course but intel has time to remedy that.
Intel’s HQ is in Santa Clara. Hell, Intel’s presence was one of the driving forces BEHIND Silicon Valley.
Intel has facilities in Oregon but the headquarters of the company is in Silicon Valley.
obJust: I have friends who work there.
Intel needs to replace a lot more people than just the CEO..It's embarrassing to see Intel in its current state.
Now, whether or not Intel can match the types of improvements Apple has made is another question entirely. I for one certainly hope so; competition is generally good.
"If' Is doing all the heavy lifting in comment. So likewise, if Intel can catch up other cpu fabs they will be fine, and if they can best them they will be better. So many ifs.
Meanwhile in reality Windows on ARM I a perennial joke. To be fair to MS, the primary reason is they pride themselves on backwards compatibility and moving to ARM would either mean dropping support for a lot of old apps or trying to do a lot emulation/translation that had acceptable performance. So one of their strengths, backward compatibility, is the thing that is keeping them from a larger processor architecture change.
I mean relatively Intel was giving like 5-10% increases, year after year, while the other improvements, from the rest of the industry, WE WERE NOTICING and now here we are 10 years later in 2020. And it's over man, done. I don't see how you can just sleep or rest on your laurels for 10 years and be like "We got this." Then what snap out of a funk, and miraculously come up with a new (Intel) ARCH and put down 10 years of Apple's work on ARMbe t, like it was nothing?
IDK maybe they have a chance... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7vtWB4owdE