Word: intel
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Until last year, that is, when Intel delayed production of its latest Pentium 4 chip and scaled back its proposed speed from 4 GHz to 3.8 GHz. That was partly owing to technical complications; pack too many transistors onto a microchip, and you have magnetic resistance and overheating issues that require bulkier fans and suck up more battery life in your laptop. But the bigger problem is simply that most of us no longer have such a need for speed, at least when it comes to everyday applications such as e-mail, Web browsers and spreadsheets, which work just...
...Otellini, who will become CEO in May, that reality has the makings of a crisis. And in fact the Pentium 4 issue was only one of a whole host of mishaps and missteps that Intel found itself confronted with in 2004. The LCOS (liquid crystal on silicon) chip for high-definition TVs, a pet project of Otellini's that (as president and COO) he had announced with much fanfare in January 2004, was abandoned in November when the cost of production became prohibitive. Waggish engineers made a disco ball out of defunct LCOS chips for Intel's holiday party...
...Perhaps more wounding was the fact that longtime allies seemed to be abandoning Intel. Microsoft announced that it would turn to IBM for the chips for its next video-games console, the Xbox 2, though it was Intel x86 chips that powered the original Xbox. Kevin Rollins, the new CEO of Dell--the world's biggest manufacturer of Intel PCs--mused publicly about the possibility of switching to AMD chips. (Rollins has since decided to stick with Intel.) Craig Barrett, the current Intel CEO, who will step down in May, went into mea culpa mode. "This is not the Intel...
Failure, of course, is not what Otellini has in mind. So how does he see Intel handling this raft of new challenges? For most companies, losing the CEO (Barrett must step down at age 65, according to Intel policy) would only add to the crisis. But Intel has a long history of smooth transitions from one leader to the next, and Otellini has been the heir apparent for more than two years. "Bob [Noyce] was the consummate entrepreneur," says Otellini, describing the company's founding chief. "Gordon [Moore] was the genius. Andy [Grove] was the management guru. Craig [Barrett...
...least, that emphasis has worked wonders. Otellini, the first nonengineer to helm Intel, has been stressing consumer-friendly products over speedier chips in his speeches for the past four years (he calls the strategy by the awkward name "platformization"). He put the plan to work in 2003 with another of his pet projects--the Centrino--a set of chips specifically designed for wi-fi-enabled laptops. For wi-fi capability, all you really need is the Pentium M, the chip at the heart of Centrino, but Otellini wanted to sell a bundle of chips along with it that would help...