Intel Corp (INTC)

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Please give me a counter-argument as to why Bay Trail-T is either:

(1) a technological success
(2) a financial success

First of all, Bay Trail will never amount to a dollar of profit for Intel. However, it's obviously capable from a technical standpoint of getting a foot in the door, albeit at loss-leading prices, and is going up against some very powerful incumbents. I think we're going to see a flood of new designs as a result of the aggressive pricing, aiming for Back to School season.

Second, your assertion of sub-par GPU performance holds true in one key benchmark (GLBenchmark), and not in another (3DMark). Both amount to the only two benchmarks that you can use to compare performance across operating systems and across architectures, and both make a fair effort in aligning to gaming ISV's as representative. You tend to exclude 3DMark on Android, even though it's no less legitimate, and Intel happens to score at or above Apple, Samsung, and nVidia. I don't suppose you'd call Apple's product a technological failure (surely on the basis of GLBenchmark, even though 3DMark does not support the same conclusion), and by the same reasons, I wouldn't call Bay Trail a technological failure.

(2) doesn't hold true for obvious reasons; at a platform level it is too expensive to go into the low end, thus requiring contra-revenue subsidies in order to get it designed into products (that, interestingly enough, have yet to appear on shelves).

What are you trying to say? That Intel posted the losses and contra-revenue from sale of items, but none of the systems will ship?? Pretty strange rationale... another reason why I can't take you seriously. You combine all the downsides into illogical and irrational scenarios. You can't have it both ways.

I submit to you that its competitive position would have been much more robust had it found its way into devices much sooner

I think it's an effect on the market, and when OEMs tend to ship systems. We know it missed the holiday season, as well as the mobile designs coming out of CES/MWC. There's a big gap between the market windows here, and then next one to start over the summer season, leading up to Back to School. Again, Intel has already posted the losses from the contra-revenue. The systems HAVE to be shipping by Back to School.

I take back my assertion and instead simply wonder why more Core-based notebooks aren't fan-less these days?

I think a few OEMs with sufficient effort can take a Haswell Y part and do a fanless industrial design. But those will be premium devices, and hence low volume. Intel could have priced it lower, but I think they bit the bullet on Bay Trail, and likely made the right call to keep Core priced at a premium. I can see Broadwell ramping much more strongly than Haswell in the fanless power envelope. I hope to see the majority of convertible and detachable designs by Holiday season this year shipping with fanless chasses and Broadwell Y processors, extending down to $599-ish price points. Those should be pretty compelling systems.