Jean-Louis Gassée, Monday Note:
By declining Steve Jobs’ proposal to make the original iPhone CPU in 2005, Intel missed a huge opportunity. The company’s disbelief in Apple’s ambitious forecast is belied by the numbers: More than 1.8 billion iOS devices have been sold thus far.
And:
One may wonder why then-CEO Paul Otellini didn’t make Apple an offer they couldn’t refuse: Access to Intel’s superior silicon manufacturing technology. At the time, Apple had nothing; Intel held all the cards.
And:
A few years later, after the dramatic rise of ARM-powered smartphones, Intel execs’ faith in Wintel was unshaken: “The temporary advantage these less sophisticated, Windows-less ARM chips are enjoying will be erased by the superior silicon manufacturing process of the x86. It’s nothing…”
Fantastic take on Intel’s Apple hubris. Now Intel is fighting for its very existence.
“Now Intel is fighting for their lives.”
No.
Intel is fighting for its life
Well, at least he didn’t write “it’s.”
Well aren’t we feeling our oats this morning!!! ?
Fixed. And thanks.
— Dave
When big-company management begins to believe its own sales-pitch trash talk about rival work, you get hardening of the arteries. I’m imagining a pity-party with Otellini, Balsillie, Ballmer, and Colligan in a back booth of a three-star restaurant.
Update: My only consolation in the idea that Intel might acquire Broadcom (and hopefully prevent Broadcom’s anticompetitive attempt to acquire Qualcomm), is that Intel would likely benefit from those assets about as much as Microsoft did with Nokia Devices & Services.