INTEL leadership lacks basic wisdom

INTEL lagged behind AMD for 6 years back in 2003 when AMD introduced its Opteron CPU. AMD started to show sign of life, both its CPU business and flash business were making some small profits, Opteron gained 5% server market, AMD folks were getting a bit cocky. At the time, I proposed that AMD should spin off Spansion right away and focus solely on CPU business. Apparently, AMD folks decided to milk the cash cow a bit more.

INTEL folks got so jealous of AMD, they decided to dump flash like hell to punish AMD. Overnight, NOR flash price dropped 40%, and overnight, AMD found it was losing big money on the flash business. AMD's stock fell like a rock.

But in restrospect, INTEL execs were simply not shrewd. What they did pushed AMD near the edge of a cliff, and forced AMD to fight back with all its strength and 1000% more.

Quickly, AMD decided to spin off flash, and pushed dual core out the door, and then launched the deadly lawsuit.

Look forward 3 years, INTEL is in deep doodoo. INTEL is so far behind in servers and desktops, there is zero hope that it can catch up, Paxville was a big disappointment, and Dempsey shows no promise, Yonah is slow and 32 bit... And, AMD's progress is accelerating onto 32P glueless multi-processing. On the flash ground, Spansion, an independent company is going to gun down INTEL's NOR business with its cost effective mirror bit technology.

If INTEL execs were smarter, they would have let AMD folks gain a bit here and there, making small money here and there and make sure AMD folks feel no pressure, so INTEL could buy the time to catch up. When you were far behind, the worst thing you could do is wavering big flags and shouting....

Now, it's too late.