back to article Intel preps for layoffs: Chipzilla sharpens axe for deep job cuts

Job queues in Intel’s home state of Oregon are to swell in 2016 with Chipzilla steering thousands of workers to the chopping block. So claimed local paper The Oregonian, where Chipzilla is headquartered, with the employee cull said to start after Intel reports its Q1 numbers next week. According to the loquacious sources the …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Mature markets and good enough for home use

    Developed economies are kitted out as needed. Under or undeveloped markets appear to be moving tablets or phones for Internet access.

    Living in a mature economy, I would love to have a significantly more powerful computer/laptop, but I can't justify the cost versus performance as I don't need one and this is where Intel/AMD find themselves. I suppose that the next steps in this process should be that code should be optimized to run as efficiently as possible on existing systems.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Mature markets and good enough for home use

      I'd pay for significant wattage reduction. Less cooling fans, smaller cases, UPS could run for hours and hours.

      But I don't think most users care, even though they're currently using 100+ watts to browse facebook.

      1. Mr. A. N. Onymous

        Re: Mature markets and good enough for home use

        "But I don't think most users care, even though they're currently using 100+ watts to browse facebook."

        To be fair, I think a huge percentage of folks are using their phones, tablets, at a few MW per. Hence the mess at chipzilla.

    2. Voland's right hand Silver badge

      Re: Mature markets and good enough for home use

      This has been the case for 3+ years now. A 3 year old laptop with a mobile 1.7 GHz AMD A4 from those days is perfectly fit for purpose for most of us. Ditto for desktops - My 4.1 GHz A8 is perfectly fit for purpose 3 years after buying it. If we will start looking at "replacement candidates" the number is now at 5+ years (early E series CPUs and Atom). That is several times longer than the replacement cycle on which the PC industry has grown up (2-3 years average)

      It hit AMD earlier as it is limited to CPUs and GPUs so it is more vulnerable to the computer replacement cycle.

      The effect on Intel was delayed by Intel doing flash, networking and other odds and sods which were not affected as badly as the CPUs. That cushion has been exhausted as well as the sub-250G flash drive prices have tanked. As a result Intel will have to adjust to the "no-more-growth" paradigm.

      1. Ashley_Pomeroy

        Re: Mature markets and good enough for home use

        I have in my possession an ancient ThinkPad X60s, which was launched almost exactly ten years ago. It has a Core Duo running at 1.6ghz or thereabouts. With a cheap SSD, Linux Mint, and Noscript it doesn't feel subjectively slower than my modern desktop for basic internet.

        I can remember when ten years was a very long time in computer development. In 2006 a ten-year-old laptop would have been a Pentium 133 with 32mb of memory or similar - basically ancient history.

        It puts me in mind of the whole Mig-25/F-15 Eagle affair from the 1970s. It's as if Intel was panicked by AMD's success in the early 2000s, so they junked the Pentium 4, devised the Core Duo, and in the process packed several years of technological process into one upgraded cycle. Now they are stuck with technology that's good enough for the foreseeable future, which is awkward from a business point of view.

    3. iOS6 user

      Re: Mature markets and good enough for home use

      It is well known that income from PC market was used on subsidy servers high end CPUs.

      Interesting how those changes will affect x86 servers prices in matter of half to one year?

  2. Anonymous Custard
    Headmaster

    Doing the time warp?

    Job queues in Intel’s home state of Oregon are to swell in 2015 with Chipzilla steering thousands of workers to the chopping block.

    ...Windows 10 is not expected to drive larger volumes of purchases of standard desktops and notebooks until 2016.

    I'm fairly sure last time I looked at a calendar we were actually in 2016 at the moment, indeed almost 1/3 of the way through it? Or are these redundancies so hard-hitting that they're being backdated?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Doing the time warp?

      Windows 10 obviously doesn't use enough resources.

      Wasn't that the deal? Microsoft bogged down their OS, Intel made faster chips?

    2. admiraljkb
      Joke

      Re: Doing the time warp?

      "Or are these redundancies so hard-hitting that they're being backdated?"

      Retconn'd redundancies? That'll be a new way to handle accounting "challenges". :)

  3. The Count

    Home state of Oregon??

    FYI, Intel is headquartered in Santa Clara on Mission College Blvd. Which if you'd take any time at all to lookup you'll see is in California.

    1. Anonymous Custard

      Re: Home state of Oregon??

      Indeed, although to be fair the manufacturing/R&D mothership is in Oregon (Portland).

      At least it better be, as that's where I'm going in a couple of weeks time to visit it...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Home state of Oregon??

        When I worked at Intel in Oregon, back in the mid-90s, Portland was far away. All Intel facilities were in the Hillsboro area, west of Portland, over a large hill.

        1. John 104

          Re: Home state of Oregon??

          Hillsboro isn't really that far from Portland. 30 minutes maybe? Just past all the allergy inducing grass seed farms...

          1. Petrea Mitchell
            Alert

            Re: Home state of Oregon??

            Yes, all that's in California is the HQ. Most of its US presence is here in Oregon, which is why it's big news in The Oregonian (front page of Saturday's paper, IIRC).

            There are pieces of it in Beaverton, Aloha, and Hillsboro-- all suburbs of Portland, so from a sufficient distance (like El Reg Central), "Portland" is a reasonable enough approximation.

            Also, those with allergies may be happy to know that development has displaced all the grass seed farms in between Hillsboro and Portland by now.

  4. Howard Hanek
    Childcatcher

    Alternative Viewpoint

    The campaign to eliminate child pornography may be partly responsible. Once the first batch of convicted felons are released in ten years or so we should see PC sales recover.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Childcatcher

      Re: Alternative Viewpoint

      No ... these are CP sales, shurely?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    Most peeps PCs are good enough

    My main machine is a home assembled tower, running Windows 10 on a quad core Q6600 over-clocked to 3Ghz with an SSD. I can't think of a reason to upgrade, given the price/performance of this rig.

  6. John 104

    So these will be management positions that get cut, right? After all, they are the one that make the business decisions and obviously they made the wrong ones.

  7. Zakhar

    They are stubborn!

    As far as I know, Intel has an ARM licence.

    Intel is very good at doing processors and has probably the most advanced technology for 10nm chips.

    Should they chose to go that way (ARM), they could rock the mobile/tablet market. But apparently they have no such strategy and they still think x86 is what rules the world. They should do a headcount of processors that are been sold around the world... or hire someone with a better strategic vision.

    Going that way (ARM) would not mean x86 is bad. x86 is awesome, but a little bit to tied to W$ which is dying. Linux does not need x86, it works very well on ARM too (cf Android!)... and we don't need 300$ processors for most common use cases! (that is the price of a whole smartphone!)

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: They are stubborn!

      x86 is not awesome. Not at all.

    2. thames

      Re: They are stubborn!

      The ARM market is very competitive, with much lower prices and multiple suppliers. Intel's stock price would implode if they had to live without the inflated margins they enjoy in the x86 market. Intel has a lot of fixed costs such as management overhead and underutilised fixed assets such as buildings and fab lines which they would somehow have to pay for out of a shrinking revenue. They would have to shed assets drastically to survive, and perhaps spin off their fabs like AMD did.

      I suspect that x86 will eventually go the way of Sparc. It may not disappear, but it will be squeezed into smaller and smaller specialist niches while the high volume processor (e.g. ARM) will take over the mainstream.

    3. iOS6 user

      Re: They are stubborn!

      > As far as I know, Intel has an ARM licence.

      That is true. Problem for Intel only is on ARM market Intel has no dominating position like it is on x86.

  8. bombastic bob Silver badge

    WIn-10-nic and "Ape" strike again!

    Once again, Win-10-nic and "Ape" are cooperatively *KILLING* new PC sales, by PREVENTING "the new machine" from looking/performing PERCEPTIVELY BETTER than 'what you already have'. This goes DOUBLE if your existing computer has Win 7 or XP on it. or even VISTA...

    "Many businesses upgraded from Windows XP a couple of years ago and Windows 10 is not expected to drive larger volumes of purchases of standard desktops and notebooks until 2016"

    you mean NEVER, not 'until 2016'. Only by KILLING OFF Windows 7 (this October) does Microsoft even STAND A CHANCE of *FORCING* new computer makers to ONLY offer a "the METRO" FLUGLY (flat/ugly) interface computer as the *ONLY* option.

    Well, not ONLY, if manufacturers are to GROW A CLUE and start volume-shipping "alternatives" - like Mint Linux, maybe?

    So as long as this year's computer is not PERCEPTIBLY BETTER than last year's computer, the only SIGNIFICANT sales that will take place are due to a) do not have a computer, or b) the old computer is broken . No more "new/shiny" as a motivation, because there _IS_ no "new/shiny". there's only "mediocre/dull".

  9. energystar
    Windows

    In total Awe!

    About what seems to be repentance. Empowering Individuals has been [finally] declared not to be in the best interests of Status Quo. Welcome back! Mainframes Era!

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