CombJelly
Well I think we're going to have to disagree on this.
As far as I can tell most of the major problems INTC has had were caused by INTC marketing trying to create products that were outside the mainstream market in a vain attempt to retain INTC's monopoly (Rambus memory, Itanium). The rest of the problems(design/production) are sort of related in that INTC in trying to protect itself from competition avoided mainstream solutions. The P4 with it's total emphasis on speed at the cost of everything else and the rejection of the CU and SOI processes are examples of the hubris at INTC. INTC has consistently chosen the hard way (non-mainstream) to do things in a not very successful attempt to retain the monopoly.
It's really quite amazing how far INTC has been willing to go to avoid direct competition with the runt (AMD). In the end all these attempts have failed and indeed had the opposite effect of that intended. Today AMD is looked at (by those knowledgeable) as the leader in both design and production( with IBM's help). Almost every worthwhile INTC initiative lately has been a copy of something thought up at AMD.
These decisions, to do it the hard way, were made by INTC management, no one else is to blame. Could they have chosen a worse path to follow?
When I stated investing in AMD again in 1999 it was largely done on the promise of the triple piped FPU in the soon to be Athlon. At the time I figured in 4 or 5 years AMD might be able to take 30% to 35% of the CPU market and be fabulously profitable. No way did I ever figure INTC management would do so much to help AMD. Today, I honestly don't know where the ceiling is. One thing is for sure, until INTC changes it's philosophy/management things are just going to get worse.
There are some indications that reality is finally starting to prevail(dumping of P4, adoption of AMD64, model numbering, etc.), but a lot more needs to be done. In the meantime the days of the INTC monopoly are fading fast. Of course this has loads of distasteful implications for INTC and its stockholders. As far as I can tell INTC is about 2 steps away from a massive coronary. I'll get into that in another message.
