Re: maybe fair?
If you look through Intel's modem product range (xDSL and 4G/5G) they had a lot of issues or straight out didn't work. Intel didn't walk away, they couldn't compete...
As for Qualcomm on the server CPU side, their challenge was entering a reasonably competitive market (high end multicore ARM/low end multicore x86/others) where there was significant investment required to get high core count ARM chips working with decent IO/memory bandwidth while also making money. That risk was compounded by being dependent on a fab partner (Samsung) and Intel appearing to have a significant advantage in the period Qualcomm tried (2013-2018). The problem was Qualcomm likely spent $0.5bn to get to that point and needed another $1bn to get the next generation done and I'm not sure how much they made on server chips. I'm not saying Qualcomm couldn't have made competitive ARM server chips and their products worked without any significant issues, it's just that the costs were significant and the risks made it hard to justify continuing. I'm unsure if Intel floundering would have helped in any significant way given AMD/TSMC's rise.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
