Intel Corp (INTC)

[wbmw]

Re: The marketing people pushed "MHz Sells!" and Grove made the call. That's why Intel has been in a tailspin for the last few years. That decision. Netburst was the wrong choice and he had to approve it.

I don't think the 20-stage Northwood design was bad at all. In fact, it gave AMD's K7 architecture quite a bit of trouble. People expected Intel to shrink this design and add enhancements, but that's when they came out with the 31-stage Prescott monstrocity. I don't think Grove had anything to do with that, and Barrett wouldn't know enough about processor micro-architecture to make an educated decision about it. In other words, Intel's future was in the hands of upper level management, not the CEO. You might be able to make a good case about giving the CEO position to a someone who isn't a processor design engineer, but that's another discussion entirely.