Replies to post #12273 on Intel Corp (INTC)

[tecate]

AMD : I didn't bring up AMD. Tecate did and now you did. I doubt if AMD is even discussed more than 20% of the time by Intel Execs. AMD has not gone anywhere for 2 decades, and not likely to do so on a sustained basis in future. It makes little sense to be discussing AMD so much on this thread (beside the entertainment value!). My criticism of Intels execution is not an acknowledgement of AMDs good execution. I would rather have Intel measure itself against what it has done in the past (early 90s) and what it is capable of doing with the resource it has.


I would disagree that AMD has not gone anywhere in 2 decades, they move up, they move down.. they have a fine lineup for now. Intel will make mistakes, every company does. The company is very large - while the manufacturing error is annoying, it is possible and it did happen and says nothing about the overall quality of Intel's products. I think it's nonsensical it measure Intel against itself in the 90s - Intel is measured against its competition in all products they produce. Right now, they are changing platforms, releasing new products across the board, new chipsets.. rather than whine about the few things that missed, given the spectrum of what they have accomplished in the last 6 months, I admire what the company has accomplished.. it's not easy to be number 1 and keep that position... also, being number 1 leads to constant negative articles and opinions about Intel. Just part of being number 1..

[alan81]

Some additional thoughts...
The frequency of failure in the area of core-competency is a result of inferior execution, more than additional risk-taking.
These are inextricably linked. If the project you are working on is "easy" for the team doing it, they will execute well. If it is complex for the team doing it they are more likely to fail. Intel has hired thousands of people over the past five years, and yes I agree that the number of problems increases with the number of new hires. However, this positions them well for future projects with a larger, well trained staff. When teams work on "easy" projects they tend not to learn much and not be able to tackle harder stuff in the future. When they work on complex things and fail, they tend to learn lots of stuff that enables them to be successful on more complex projects in the future.
Public perception is huge, especially when your next growth is going to come from consumers. A recall hurts the image
I have to disagree with your premise, although it makes intuitive sense. The FDIV bug did wonders for the Intel reputation... in a positive sense. If there are continual recalls that would be a problem, but somehow the occasional recall just seems to remind people that the material they get is good, and bad material gets sent back. Based on the people that do brand value surveys, the Intel brand is one of the most valuable in the world, and that value continues to grow. It has grown substantially since your period in the early '90's.

Point 3 about AMD...
You are right on here. We just get so many folks (AMDoug, facs...) with a real attitude we are a bit sensitive over here:-)
--Alan

[morrowinder]

Maui:

The bottom line is that this ICH6 screw up is not good for public perception but I think there a few key things that you have to consider:

1. Scale. It doesn't appear to be that big and it doesn't affect any end users.

2. Severity. Its already been fixed, its a simple fix.

3. Financial impact. This is the unknown at this point. But I believe it will be small.

It does bother me that this happened but I'm not going to focus on it excessively. It's a bump in the road. If it happened to AMD we likely would never know about it. They simply aren't scrutinized this much plus they probably would have swept it under the rug. You certainly didn't see the furor or headlines on the Opteron bug did you(well except for the inquirer but even that was nothing compared to their caustic headlines on this Grantsdale thing).