Intel Explores Sale of Networking and Edge Unit 15
An anonymous reader shares a report: Intel has considered divesting its network and edge businesses as the chipmaker looks to shave off parts of the company its new chief executive does not see as crucial, three sources familiar with the matter said.
Talks about the potential sale of the group, once called NEX in Intel's financial results, are a part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan's strategy to focus its tens of thousands of employees on areas in which it has historically thrived: PC and data center chips.
Talks about the potential sale of the group, once called NEX in Intel's financial results, are a part of CEO Lip-Bu Tan's strategy to focus its tens of thousands of employees on areas in which it has historically thrived: PC and data center chips.
True to Form (Score:4, Interesting)
My experience with Intel goes back decades -- back to when Andy Grove was running the place. It was always thus.
They would always be looking for a way to expand their business -- who wouldn't when they were at the top of the game -- and of course they would "invest" in embedded computing and networking products. With the exception of the Ethernet adapter chip, one by one their products would only do middling in the market, not make that much money, then they would deprecate/cancel/end-of-life the product with no replacement. In this case they are selling it off.
Inevitably their management would make a statement about "returning to our core competency" and this year seems no different. At the end of the day those products you designed on their chips ended up with no future. Deal.
The products themselves weren't bad -- and the network adapter chip managed to achieve dominance -- but Intel never seemed to know how to make a business out of it. Much of that I suspect was software. Software support for chips is expensive to maintain. They knew how to deal with Microsoft and other software sources basically followed along that path, pumping up the market for their x86-based chips. But that duopoly has fallen apart and they know it. Of course they will try to reclaim the CPU business but I just don't see how. Doing what Apple has done with the M series of chips or Nvidia has done is not something you just pivot to.
And AMD has hit their stride. Intel will survive but I don't see a path to market dominance they once had.
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Intel did that with the RealSense camera, they developed this really cool 3D Stereo camera and then just as robotics and vtubers are taking off (which are the only two real markets for these devices) they decide to cancel all but the D400 series.
All that would be required to get vtubers to buy the realsense camera is a version that can speak ARKit's language over ethernet. Right now there's not really a lot of options for stereo/IR cameras other than robotics uses which while similar, don't actually work th
Which will it be? (Score:3)
I really don't know. My jury is still out regarding Intel. My gut tells me that they're in trouble. I hope the rebound.
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The networking unit is one of those areas that have been respected. Even many AMD based motherboards incorporate Intel networking on them. So, it's a good source of revenue that is reliable, less prone to dips in popularity of this or that. For any larger corporation, having parts of the company that will continue to bring in money no matter what else may be going on SHOULD be seen as a very safe and intelligent thing to do.
AMD was able to use the console chip sales to hold things together, even in so
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The networking unit is one of those areas that have been respected. Even many AMD based motherboards incorporate Intel networking on them. So, it's a good source of revenue that is reliable, less prone to dips in popularity of this or that. For any larger corporation, having parts of the company that will continue to bring in money no matter what else may be going on SHOULD be seen as a very safe and intelligent thing to do.
AMD was able to use the console chip sales to hold things together, even in some bad times for example. An area doesn't have to be really really profitable to be a good thing to keep around.
It looks to me like they're selling off one of the few things they have that someone would be willing to pay decent money for. Which, to me, says this is nearing venture capitalist mentality. Strip the business of anything worthwhile, then gut it financially as the good parts disappear.
It'd be nice if I was wrong on that particular gut feeling. I'd hate to see where AMD will be in a few years if Intel doesn't continue to exist as valid competition in the processor market, even if they've stumbled a bit here
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Why? (Score:1)
You don't prune the healthy parts of the company!
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Being profitable means selling at a higher price, getting more needed cash to compete in the cpu tatami. If the cpu division falls, the whole intel will fall no matter how good these bussines units are. So selling profitable units might in the end save the company.
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The calculation must be differe
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This is their "cash" reserve. When they bring in CPU profits, they can't reinvest it back into CPUs without building an additional multi-billion dollar fabrication facility. They need to stick the money somewhere to earn "interest" and adding products within their vertical might save them some money for a while too. When they struggle, they can axe these businesses without touching or hurting the CPU business.
Anyone but Broadcom (Score:2)
Edge Unit? (Score:2)
Is that anything to do with Microsloths version of the Chrome Browser?
Customer focus is better (Score:2)
Intel should fix their business relations.
Right now the only way for a customer to meet an Intel rep is to visit a trade show and the people on the floor there are a waste. They are tradeshow people not Intel reps.
Intel needs to add a link on their web page... "call me now" where they ask "how big is your company" and "which indu