Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[chipguy]

Prior to the period you describe, intel was fat, lazy, and arrogant. Even after AMD wasn't able to make clones after 286, there was a fat/lazy attitude I detected during the K* days, due to well known manufacturing issues with those products, during that time. Intel didn't wake up and smell the coffee until Athlon, and today, intel is neither Fat, nor Lazy.

I agree. There was a sea change in Intel corporate zeitgeist
in the mid to late 1990s. I have dealt professionally with
Intel reps and FAEs since about 1982 and until the early
1990s they were invariably insufferable pricks who would
lie straight to your face. The explicitly stated attitude was
"it doesn't matter how good our chips are, you have to buy
from us because we will eventually crush everyone else by
our manufacturing and process investments". BTW, other
engineers I know reported the same thing

But since the late 1990s all the Intel people I have dealt
with on line and talked with in chip conferences etc are
competent, confident, professional, and surprisingly open.
The old arrogance and secretiveness is no longer there. IMO
the big turning point was the FDIV bug and the resulting
fallout. The Athlon's technical success merely reinforced
this trend, it didn't cause it.