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So what is this? In this thread and previous threads I read many comments about people being hit by intel dropping the shoe on products that are actually great. Why don’t they capitalise on these great products and actually diversify?



Because of course every one of (the very few) users is going to complain on HN about a product they use being EOL'ed.

An to put it in perspective, Intel's IOT group, which is (lol) mostly Point of Sale and MRI machines, does $3bn of revenue a year.

Intel is a big ship, and outside of new platforms (like smartphones were), there are few meaningful ways to diversify.

Hell, even if they bought NXP (one of the actual leaders in IOT), that would still only constitute 10% of their revenue.


I have no direct knowledge, but Intel has had a history of struggling in everything but x86, until recently where x86 has struggled.

Of course it's management, but there is a particular kind of management that spawns around highly technical, highly profitable industries where engineers originally took the company to prominence.

Basically, engineers in management will be displaced by sociopathic MBAs in management that will use machiavellian social isolation combined with financing tricks.

In a way this goes back to a classic high school quote: popular people are popular because they spend all their time being popular. Nerds aren't popular because they spend their time learning.

So the "cool businesspeople" swoop in, isolate and eject the engineering-focused management with quick fix finance tricks and the usual middle management dirty pool.

Meanwhile the engineering-focused managers, invariably doing no-good-deed-goes-unpunished things like good engineering and good-for-the-companey... well, those people's days are numbered.

Then it devolves into a two-caste system: the engineers thrown enough money to keep the moneymaker ship on course and flowing, and the management caste partying on the decks.

This is not an environment conducive to moving into new markets.


I think Intel's mid-range Ethernet card are quite nice.


In our area I think where I work we’re the only ones that have a bunch of those sensors. It’s niche, HN in general is niche so I think they’re not selling millions of their LIDAR sensors. Still for those that rely on them it’s sad.


Because the ‘great products’ aren’t selling in large enough volumes to cover the division’s wage bill.

And presumably they don’t think selling far fewer at a much higher price would do so either.




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