Intel lost $929mn on mobile in Q1 '14

[TuxDave]

What I said was that the surface Pro 2 was a smashing success because (a) it had full blown windows on it (b) Intel inside was always a secondary factor. If one could get a full blown Windows desktop on an ARM powered SoC then that device would still fly off the shelves, provided it was priced right.

Generally speaking, consumers are not engineers and they look for simple things to help distinguish their purchases. Back in the day when everything was a desktop and all of it ran Windows and Dell = HP = Sony = Asus = etc. The consumers learned "This PC brand was the nicest looking" and "Intel is fast" and that worked well for Intel. People could pick a brand and then look for Intel because they knew what they were getting with a Windows machine and they could afford to nitpick and get the fastest version of it.

Things are different now and overly complicated. Apple is different from everyone else and people can look for that. iOS vs Android vs Windows is something that still confuses people. Windows RT vs Windows probably confuses the heck out of everyone and I'm sure people still don't understand what Chrome OS is.

So I would say all this confusion and product differentiation is not allowing a consumer to even care about what type of silicon is underneath the hood. It's only until people understand what each product does can they start nitpicking and trying to get the "fastest version" of whatever they want.

That's my purely-unscientific 2-cent speculation on the matter and why I can agree with the bolded statement. Feel free to disagree with my reasoning.

 

[blackened23]

Personally, while I like windows and use it regularly, I find the notion that windows tablets would fly off the shelves to be ludicrous. I use an ipad on a daily basis and quite frankly, for a mobile tablet, it does some things far better and quicker than windows would. Not to mention, windows store is a P O S (which would matter for the non power user who doesn't know better), DPI scaling is screwed up, app support TAILORED for small tablet form factors are near non existent, among other things.

Now of course I like and use windows. I'll use it on an ultrabook. Or a desktop. But I don't think consumers are sold on windows for tablets. That's why intel is going to android and chrome os. Like it or not, android has its niche and it's a great mobile operating system. Windows has its strengths, being suitable to super small form factors and having the software ecosystem to back that up isn't quite there yet. So, yes, while we have windows tablets, they can only sell on price right now. Because consumers aren't buying windows tablets with iPad type prices.

Simply put, Android and iOS are FAR more fleshed out in terms of being specifically tailored to be great on a small mobile tablet. Keep in mind that for an app to work well on a small mobile tablet device, the apps must be designed with the form factor in mind. This is where windows suffers. Being a great app on the desktop doesn't translate into a great mobile app. And DPI plays in to that, partially. Now i'm the last person to hate on Windows; I like windows. But there are strengths and weaknesses. Just like I would never use android on the desktop, windows becomes slightly questionable on a 7 inch tablet.

Intel went to android for a reason. All intel has to do is create a great SOC with great performance, great performance per watt, and most consumers won't care - but OEMs will. Now that intel finally does support android, I think they will sell a ton of chips for the android market, just as they have for the windows market. Remember, the #1 etailer seller for months now (particularly on amazon/newegg) has been a BT based device.

No one is saying intel will dominate. At least, i'm not. But intel will be a great competitor. IMO. The 14nm successor will be even better from what we know, and that is coming this year. So while i'm sure some would love to see intel fail, I really don't think it will happen. I think they will do well. Which, as a consumer, I appreciate. I also agree with Tux that typical users don't really know much of anything about what SOC is under the hood. Could not agree more. Intel is selling to OEMs. OEMs do not care what chip they put in as long as their metrics are met; right now the best of those metrics is qualcomm. I think intel will be a viable competitor to qualcomm now that they have both great performance AND full android x64 support; in fact, intel beat qualcomm to the 64 bit android punch. I definitely see that playing somewhat in intel's favor later this fall, with the 14nm SOC hitting the market.

 

[Phynaz]

But all that money had to go somewhere, i mean it was removed from Intel s bank accounts, investments in RD wich are not recouped by the sales margins are losses whatever the naming , it would be like slashing the Haswell line prices such that they couldnt even fund the past RD, that s a suicidal behaviour and if you had read my post closely you would have noticed, since you re talking of AMD, that i mentionned that Intel s current CEO has the same background as AMD s Dirk Meyer, that is both are enginers not real managers, and since before editing your post you mentionned AMD s mobile department as sold to Qualcomm i can only remind you that Intel did the same for a few peanuts as well....

Please enlighten us. How much money should the worlds largest semiconductor manufacturer spend on creating new lines of mobile CPUs and communication chips? When should they see the return on that investment?

 

[Lepton87]

Intel should just stay out of mobile. They aren't dexterous enough to compete successfully in mobile and they know it. They're gonna need all the money they can get once apple starts producing desktop chips.



Mobile is intels life boat. They know that by 2016 apple will be producing all it's own desktop and laptop chips and that's an instant MASSIVE loss in marketshare. The moment an A9 or A10 powered Apple laptop comes out they've lost and mobile is what they think will save them.


They'd be better off working on an architecture that actually works (Haswell) vs an example of their incompetence (Bay Trail)

Can apple really design a better CPU for a laptop then Intel on a larger process node? I don't think so. Apple sells premium laptops so it wouldn't make any sense for them not to go for the best CPU.

 

[NTMBK]

Can apple really design a better CPU for a laptop then Intel on a larger process node? I don't think so. Apple sells premium laptops so it wouldn't make any sense for them not to go for the best CPU.

They already made a better SoC for phones...

 

[azazel1024]

Personally, while I like windows and use it regularly, I find the notion that windows tablets would fly off the shelves to be ludicrous. I use an ipad on a daily basis and quite frankly, for a mobile tablet, it does some things far better and quicker than windows would. Not to mention, windows store is a P O S (which would matter for the non power user who doesn't know better), DPI scaling is screwed up, app support TAILORED for small tablet form factors are near non existent, among other things.

Now of course I like and use windows. I'll use it on an ultrabook. Or a desktop. But I don't think consumers are sold on windows for tablets. That's why intel is going to android and chrome os. Like it or not, android has its niche and it's a great mobile operating system. Windows has its strengths, being suitable to super small form factors and having the software ecosystem to back that up isn't quite there yet. So, yes, while we have windows tablets, they can only sell on price right now. Because consumers aren't buying windows tablets with iPad type prices.

Simply put, Android and iOS are FAR more fleshed out in terms of being specifically tailored to be great on a small mobile tablet. Keep in mind that for an app to work well on a small mobile tablet device, the apps must be designed with the form factor in mind. This is where windows suffers. Being a great app on the desktop doesn't translate into a great mobile app. And DPI plays in to that, partially. Now i'm the last person to hate on Windows; I like windows. But there are strengths and weaknesses. Just like I would never use android on the desktop, windows becomes slightly questionable on a 7 inch tablet.

Intel went to android for a reason. All intel has to do is create a great SOC with great performance, great performance per watt, and most consumers won't care - but OEMs will. Now that intel finally does support android, I think they will sell a ton of chips for the android market, just as they have for the windows market. Remember, the #1 etailer seller for months now (particularly on amazon/newegg) has been a BT based device.

No one is saying intel will dominate. At least, i'm not. But intel will be a great competitor. IMO. The 14nm successor will be even better from what we know, and that is coming this year. So while i'm sure some would love to see intel fail, I really don't think it will happen. I think they will do well. Which, as a consumer, I appreciate. I also agree with Tux that typical users don't really know much of anything about what SOC is under the hood. Could not agree more. Intel is selling to OEMs. OEMs do not care what chip they put in as long as their metrics are met; right now the best of those metrics is qualcomm. I think intel will be a viable competitor to qualcomm now that they have both great performance AND full android x64 support; in fact, intel beat qualcomm to the 64 bit android punch. I definitely see that playing somewhat in intel's favor later this fall, with the 14nm SOC hitting the market.

Eh, each to his own. I have an Asus T100 and it is massively better than my iPad 2 was for a large list of reasons. Just as a tablet, it has all of the functionality I needed out of iOS and a bit more. I am not huge in to apps, but it has the basics of what I need and want.

A good email client (for me anyway, more flexible than the iOS one), a good video player, a good music player, a good calendar app, a good netflix app, a number of basic touch games, a good browser (better than Safari), a good Skype app and that is pretty much it. There are of course a number of other apps (with a few key ones still missing for some people, I won't deny that) out there too.

However, the customizability is beyond iOS as is the content creationability. Then the fact that I can stick it in the keyboard dock and pull up the desktop with all of my legacy apps is fantastic. Or I can do that with just touch. The desktop with touch still isn't great, especially IN a lot of applications, but navigating around the desktop with the Windows 8.1 touch interface actually isn't too bad. A heck of a lot better than Windows 7 was, IMHO. You can also avoid all of that and stay in metro and do just about anything you'd want. In terms of windows on a tablet, in some ways its better, but in other ways not as good compared (especially in App selection) to iOS and Android are as just a tablet OS, where it really shines is with a 2-in-1 device (dockable tablet)...there it is just massively better (IMHO).

In the end, the thing handles all of the basics of being a tablet that to me are crucial, plus it can do so much more than the basics...most of that stuff which iOS can't do.

I liked my iPad 2, more or less. I LOVE my T100/Windows tablet.

The Bay Trail-T processor though is awesome. Yeah, better CPU/GPU would be really nice, but compared to the ARM competition currently, the CPU is quite a bit better and the GPU is deffinitely getting there. The t100 is basically the first mobile device that I'eve actually used that I could consider resonably replacing my laptop and possibly my desktop. It won't, because those are both still much faster and more suitable for some tasks, but it actually COULD now. Give it another year or two and Cherry or Willow Trail might just be good enough to replace my laptop entirely and live with just a 2-in-1 and a desktop.

 

[Abwx]

Please enlighten us. How much money should the worlds largest semiconductor manufacturer spend on creating new lines of mobile CPUs and communication chips? When should they see the return on that investment?

I dont know , i ll let the experts answer this question but neverless they are throwing much much more money than a firm like Mediatek and i m not sure that they ll get a bigger market share, by the time they get an appreciable part of the pie the market will be even more mature and commanding razor thin margins, do you think, to borrow your own words vis a vis AMD, that Intel can live on such low pricings and margins.?

 

[Lepton87]

They already made a better SoC for phones...

Mobile Phone SoCs aren't exactly in Intel's area of expertise but laptop CPUs are. They will be going against an architecture that has been honed for many years with a handicap of an inferior process to boot, a tall order to say the least.

 

[blackened23]

I dont know , i ll let the experts answer this question but neverless they are throwing much much more money than a firm like Mediatek and i m not sure that they ll get a bigger market share, by the time they get an appreciable part of the pie the market will be even more mature and commanding razor thin margins, do you think, to borrow your own words vis a vis AMD, that Intel can live on such low pricings and margins.?

Apparently the answer is yes, but if they wanted to ask the experts at low margins, I'm sure they've seen the precedent of that happening. Cuz let's look at what AMD and not spending money on R+D did for AMD on the desktop. Intel isn't massively in debt as AMD was years back, which ultimately led to an R+D fund shortage which led to the situation we have now. AMD Desktop processors that are well behind Core in both performance and performance per watt for the desktop. That's a direct result of what AMD's NOT having R+D money is, a direct result of AMD having a ton of debt (whereas intel has a surplus of cash saved up), and AMD not having money to create viable high end products prior to Conroe's release. If AMD had R+D money in the 3-4 years prior to Conroe, perhaps they would not have taken such a beating on the desktop. But it is what it is. That's what happens with no R+D.

The answer is yes, intel has a huge warchest of saved cash. I guess that was the payoff from core and Conroe years ago, a lot of money saved up. It's pretty great being debt free and having a lot of money in the bank, because apparently, you can spend that cash on having better products 3-4 years from now through R+D. That's my guess as to what intel is doing, and they can do it, because they're not in debt and have money in the bank. But if they wanted to consult the opposite side of the coin, while what happened to AMD sucks (I do appreciate competition, and want AMD around) - i'm sure intel has seen the precedent of not spending money on R+D through AMD. I highly suspect that intel doesn't want to follow the route of AMD's indebtedness and lack of R+D. Maybe i'm wrong though.

If Intel wanted to sabotage their future, the quickest way to get there is by not spending money on R+D and not investing in future products. If you don't spend money you don't make money in the silicon business. R+D isn't an immediate payoff, it takes years to be realized. It isn't a guarantee of success, either. But not spending money on R+D is a guarantee of not being successful, as we've seen in some other corporations.

 

[NTMBK]

Mobile Phone SoCs aren't exactly in Intel's area of expertise but laptop CPUs are. They will be going against an architecture that has been honed for many years with a handicap of an inferior process to boot, a tall order to say the least.

Oh it's certainly a massive challenge, and I certainly don't think it's a sure thing. But if anyone can pull it off, it's Apple. They have enough cash sitting around that they could buy out Intel, if they really wanted to- they certainly have deep enough pockets to challenge Intel's R&D. And they seem to have built up a very competent CPU design team. 2 years ago I wouldn't have expected a custom built Apple CPU to be potentially the best design on the market, but then all of a sudden it happened. *shrug*

It may well never happen. But it certainly could happen.

Anyway, we're getting pretty off topic

 

[blackened23]

The Bay Trail-T processor though is awesome. Yeah, better CPU/GPU would be really nice, but compared to the ARM competition currently, the CPU is quite a bit better and the GPU is deffinitely getting there. The t100 is basically the first mobile device that I'eve actually used that I could consider resonably replacing my laptop and possibly my desktop. It won't, because those are both still much faster and more suitable for some tasks, but it actually COULD now. Give it another year or two and Cherry or Willow Trail might just be good enough to replace my laptop entirely and live with just a 2-in-1 and a desktop.

I also think BT is a great product. But as far as BT tablets for Windows goes, while it has sold well, a lot of the general populace doesn't see it that way; that's why intel went to android. They're not x86 / windows exclusive, and that's what they need to gain a foothold in the SoC market place. In terms of mobile market share, Android in particular is a giant.

Like I said i'm definitely not an anti-windows guy by any means. I use it every day. But I see strengths and weakness of iOS/android vs windows depending on usage, they all have merits. Ultimately, the marketplace wants SoCs for android devices, not everyone necessarily is tied to Windows; a lot of old school guys are (which is cool, I use windows myself daily) but it isn't necessarily true for the mass marketplace.

In the end it's more choice for us product wise. BT for both Windows and Android x64. Sounds good to me, regardless of what you use as a daily computing device on the go. They all have merits and strengths/weaknesses.

 

[Phynaz]

I dont know , i ll let the experts answer this question

If you don't know, then what we're you going on about earlier?

 

[Abwx]

If you don't know, then what we're you going on about earlier?

You didnt answer my question, though, and already asking another one...

 

[shady28]

Maturation of the PC.

Not much difference in the 2001 / 2010 shots. Not much difference now either.



1981 :

1986 :

1992 :

2001 :

2010 :

 

[dahorns]

Not much difference? Pretty sure if I spent 3000 on a laptop it would need to be covered in gold. It certainly wouldn't look like that 2001 or 2010 picture.

 

[blackened23]

Yeah, definitely not a large difference between a 2001 laptop with 30 minutes of battery life and a 2013 macbook air that gets 12 hours of battery life during normal usage.

Also, current ultrabooks are much thinner than the 2010 picture would suggest. But the important distinction between now and 20 years ago is performance per watt. You can actually use a machine that doesn't weigh like 4 bricks and meaningfully use it on the go. Having owned laptops from the early 2k years, that definitely was not the case back then. Performance per watt and resultant battery life was not nearly as good as what we have now, which underscores the importance of performance per watt. What's under the hood counts.

There are still gaming laptops which throw battery life out of the window if you want them, but for actual ultra portables - battery life has increased a ton, as has screen resolution and other metrics. I wouldn't say portable PCs haven't evolved. They most certainly have. Particularly in screen resolution, performance per watt, and user experience. There are exceptions of course, I mean if you want a 10 pound gaming laptop which has 30 minutes of battery life , those are still around. Or you can buy the full size 350$ laptop with a CPU performing like something from 2003 and 2 hours of battery life. Crap laptops like that still exist as well. But for the typical user, they will opt for the thinner, lighter ultrabook or macbook with the better PPW and better screen resolution. As I said. Thin portable ultrabooks most definitely have improved at the mid range and high end. By a ton.

Heck, even the notion of "desktops" has dramatically improved in recent years. With devices like the Brix Pro and NUC Haswell systems, that level of performance in such small boxes was unthinkable 10 years ago. I think it's pretty cool how even desktops are changing in that respect - it'll be interesting to see where things head. I think super small devices like that will develop even more, although they most certainly are cost prohibitive right now which isn't too cool. I mean the brix pro is like 600$+. Too much for what you get. But concept wise, I like it. Really cool stuff. And the performance is very good too with full fledged core i5/i7 CPUs.

 

[shady28]

Yeah, definitely not a large difference between a 2001 laptop with 30 minutes of battery life and a 2013 macbook air that gets 12 hours of battery life during normal usage.
...

No one is saying there is no difference, but the rate / level of differentiation was huge in the past - not so much now.

The 2001 VAIO had a battery life of 2-5 hours. 9 years later the E6410 pictured had a battery life of about 3-4 hours. That aspect is actually comparable.

If I were to have pulled up all laptops :

- The 1981 one would have been an Osborne 1 luggable :

The 1986 would have been a Kaypro 2000 :

There are huge, visible differences going up to the early - mid 1990s.

That Vaio, with some different internals, would look perfectly ok as a laptop today. No one would really look at you strangely if you walked into an airport with one.

The Osborne, Kaypro, and even the Dell from 1992 - not so much.

 

[ClockHound]

The 1986 would have been a Kaypro 2000 :

OMG! Look at the big, beautiful keyboard! Put a 21st century LCD in that puppy with an i7 and I'm SOLD!

 

[theeedude]

PC's have actually gotten WORSE with transition to crappy 16x9 screens, which are sub-optimal for work and reading. I used to have a 1920x1200 at work that was great, but they "upgraded" me to 1080p because they are phasing out Windows XP machines. I guess they expect us to watch movies instead of working.

 

[NTMBK]

PC's have actually gotten WORSE with transition to crappy 16x9 screens, which are sub-optimal for work and reading. I used to have a 1920x1200 at work that was great, but they "upgraded" me to 1080p because they are phasing out Windows XP machines. I guess they expect us to watch movies instead of working.

Agreed. The nicest laptop I ever used was a 4:3 Thinkpad, with a proper clicky keyboard.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Heck, even the notion of "desktops" has dramatically improved in recent years. With devices like the Brix Pro and NUC Haswell systems, that level of performance in such small boxes was unthinkable 10 years ago. I think it's pretty cool how even desktops are changing in that respect - it'll be interesting to see where things head. I think super small devices like that will develop even more, although they most certainly are cost prohibitive right now which isn't too cool. I mean the brix pro is like 600$+. Too much for what you get. But concept wise, I like it. Really cool stuff. And the performance is very good too with full fledged core i5/i7 CPUs.

I agree with you on the price aspect. Still waiting for Newegg to carry the Bay Trail-D NUC, with the 2.5" HDD bracket.

Picked up a couple of Foxconn AT-5570 NanoPC units, with C-70 APUs. Not bad for what you get, I got them on sale. But they get warm, really warm. Warm enough (due to only passive cooling), that the installed primary 2.5" SSD starts to develop bad sectors, and locks up after about a month of 24/7 usage. Then the SSD has to be removed, secure-erased, and re-installed. Then the OS re-installed, and all of your programs. Kind of a PITA.

 

[mrmt]

Agreed. The nicest laptop I ever used was a 4:3 Thinkpad, with a proper clicky keyboard.

I can't really complain of the last crop of Ultrabooks. Sure, 4:3 was nice, but since every software out there is developed with 16:9 in mind, this becomes a non issue.

 

[AtenRa]

Data taken from the official Intel site.

It is estimated PC shipments will decline another 6% (others say up to 10%) in 2014.
Also, Intel's Mobile division(Other Intel Architecture) may loose close to 4B in 2014 (Contra Revenue of ~1B not calculated).

It is very clear why Intel wants/Needs to get in to the mobile segment.

 

[Nothingness]

This other picture illustrates why Intel have to do everything to go beyond traditional PC (taken from Business Insider):

 

[theeedude]

Intel is not blameless in decline of traditional PCs. PC OEM's are stuck between two monopolies, Intel and Microsoft, each trying to take as much profit for themselves and leave the OEMs with subsistence level profits. So to survive, the OEMs have to cut corners, so we get crappy screens, baseline level graphics that you can't even expect to play latest games, cheap plastic construction, etc. An unbalanced experience, where you get a great CPU, but everything else sucks and ruins it.
There used to be a time when owning a PC was exciting, now it's a fairly dreary experience.