How Intel Missed the iPhone: The XScale Era

Re:How Intel Missed the iPhone: The XScale Era by kccqzy on Thursday August 29, 2024 @10:44AM (#41391330)

The Atlantic article on the interview with Otellini (which this article linked to), was very clear that Otellini wanted to say yes to the iPhone project but was swayed by data:

> "The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut," he said. "My gut told me to say yes."

It's not even sacrificing profit; it's actively reducing profits by selling at a loss.

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Re:How Intel Missed the iPhone: The XScale Era by GeekyBear on Thursday August 29, 2024 @05:04PM (#41395260)

Did you miss the part of the quote where he shares that Intel's cost estimate was wrong?

Also, after the magnitude of their error to get in at the ground floor sank in, Intel had no problems with selling x86 chips at a loss trying to break into mobile devices.

Remember their contra-revenue strategy?

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Re:How Intel Missed the iPhone: The XScale Era by kccqzy on Saturday August 31, 2024 @10:24AM (#41409082)

I didn't miss that part of the quote. And no it would make no difference to Otellini or to the discussion in this thread because he also didn't know the estimate was wrong when he made the decision.

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Re:How Intel Missed the iPhone: The XScale Era by qwytw on Sunday September 01, 2024 @03:10AM (#41414929)

Yes, but that's just an outcome of Intel's/Otellini incompetence (in that specific case) rather than anything else. He used bad data to make an (arguably) bad decision.

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