Though ARM-based (ARMH) CPUs will take share from Intel (INTC) in the notebook and server...

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Gofferson Comments (8)
 
CPU price erosion is certainly the threat to Intel. If it happens ARM will be the cause.
31 May 2012, 07:08 PM Reply Like

J.D. Welch Comments (1769)
 
Sorry, but, Wrong! Intel is the only fabricator manufacturing at the 22nm node, and making 3D Tri-Gate transistors. By all accounts all of the other fabs are about 5 years away from being able to mass-produce 3D transistors, if they can get down to 22nm, and by then Intel will be at 14nm and will have been for a while. Intel CPUs will be literally smaller, faster and cooler (less power consumptive), and OEMs including Apple will pay what they have to pay to get them. ARM-based CPUs can take all the netbook market share they want, assuming enough x86-based software will be ported over to run on ARM's instruction set soon enough for anyone to really want to buy one. Intel will more than make up for whatever erosion there is on the bottom of the CPU barrel with its ability to provide the makers of mobile gadgets with the CPUs they will crave and won't be able to get from any other foundry, not to mention how much more they'll be making in servers and mid- to high-end laptops. It's Nvidia's and AMD's graphics business that will be eroded by Intel's CPUs with embedded graphics that will be "good enough" (and really good) for most applications that people will want on most platforms. There will always be power gamers and CAD geeks who will need a discrete graphics card, but they will continue to be a shrinking number compared to the ones Intel's embedded graphics will replace; OEMs won't have to pay as much for CPU+discrete GPU, but they will see Intel's ASP go up for the CPU/embedded GPU chips, and still save money...
31 May 2012, 07:57 PM Reply Like

Cincinnatus Comments (2202)
 
That ARM is going to take server share is fantasy. Not only do they not have the software support or server features, but Intel will be out with a 6W dual core Atom with virtualization support and ECC memory later this year.

If ARM takes any significant share in notebooks (which I think is doubtful to begin with) it will happen at the very low end and will mostly impact AMD.

http://bit.ly/L6QyVZ
31 May 2012, 08:14 PM Reply Like

Pablo87 Comments (109)
 
If Intel were to lose 50M units to ARM via tablet taking share from consumer notebooks (which could very well happen), i'm wild guessing the annual profit lost would be at most $2.5B because of the low ASP and high cost of the business in this space. This wouldn't happen overnight and therefore, would be mitigated by lowering sg&a.

The much bigger risk for intel is government deficits - we can only imagine how much server/desktop/notebook biz they do in that space directly and indirectly (corporate customers doing business with government), how stratospheric the ASPs are and how austerity measures could drastically impact IT expenditures which IMO, are the first expenditure to get cut. There's a reason Intel launched a sub. called intel Federal or something like that last year, that business is that important to them.

Same comment applies to Oracle, HP, Dell, MSFT.
31 May 2012, 09:26 PM Reply Like

Cincinnatus Comments (2202)
 
The primary focus of Intel Federal is HPC (i.e. supercomputing) and similar programs. It sounds like a revival of the old Intel Scientific Computers division that used to collaborate with the Departments of Defense and Energy on high performance computing initiatives.

http://intel.ly/LQqM7w

For general computing needs the gov goes to the likes of IBM and HP because they need complete vertical systems solutions rather than just bare hardware. Not that indirectly US gov sales don't matter, but I think Intel would claim that global sales and mobile devices are much more important to them for future growth than the direction of computing sales to the US gov.
1 Jun 2012, 01:08 AM Reply Like

Gofferson Comments (8)
 
HP, Dell, Nvidia and others seem to think there's something to go for.
1 Jun 2012, 08:37 AM Reply Like

Cincinnatus Comments (2202)
 
You can't blame them for hedging. It's normal. They also supported Itanium at one time. Windows CE also supported ARM but never went anywhere. Most don't seem to understand that "pledge support for" is a common phrase in the industry that often doesn't yield any real economic result much of the time. It's incredibly difficult to move to a new architecture, and that's particularly true in the enterprise space.
1 Jun 2012, 02:28 PM Reply Like