Brian Krzanich just killed the PC

[IntelUser2000]

probably worse than Craig Barrett.

I don't entirely agree with this one. Up until the last CEO, they were replaced at about the time when they were in a downward trend, not their peak.

Craig Barrett likewise did worse toward the end of his tenure, but he brought something very important to the company, often thought to be "core" of Intel. That's manufacturing advantage.

The problem is Brian. Does he have what it takes to turn it around, or will it be the first CEO in a while that fails throughout his career?

It just seems to be the trend in computing; you could 'blame' ARM or Intel or Microsoft, but the market makes the decision as to which survives.

That trend isn't something that's overcome. I bet you if Apple/Google gets caught in the next trend, they'll fail too. In the process of trying so hard to succeed at one category, it basically closes the door to another. That's why companies fail and get bankrupt. Only thing you can do is to survive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Only thing you can do is to survive.

Whatever happened to "Only the Paranoid Survive"?

 

[beginner99]

IoT and cloud keep intel in the game because more servers are needed.

Consumers don't decide what they want or need, they're mindless drones. People don't need PC's any more, because Apple, Samsung etc. are telling them they don't need PC's (and have been doing so for years).

Windows PCs (desktop or laptop) ain't going away that soon. First reason is business use. No way I could work on a crapplet. And yes, all tablets are crap maybe with the exception of MS Surface Pro (but never used it, but it in effect is a normal windows PC).

My GF wanted an iPad and got it for Christmas from her parents. Sure not from me. I said don't do it, it's crap but womenz...She now already had to do a lot of stuff on my PC. Recently ordering some simple things on a web shop because the web shop did not work properly on the iPad.

EDIT:

The real issue PC market is declining is lack of need for upgrade. For the average consumer and office user anything from Core2 (or Phenom2) and up is more than fast enough. Even media playback up to h.264. Myself I also still use an older laptop at work, Ivy Bridge based. Actually if I would upgrade I would have less performance because company only offers 15W ultrabook models like all employees only need to do power points...So yeah no wonder intel is hurting. Give us some real CPU increase. The least thing they could do is stop market segmentation with extension. AVX, TSX, etc. for all tiers. And incentivize developers to use it, especially in games for example.

 

[cytg111]

I have no idea where this vision of IoT is coming from, I personally dont see it as something going viral/exponential, I'd expect it to be linear slow growth.
On the other hand, the good management ppl at Intel aint stupid, if they see such a future coming sooner rather than later, I will welcome that surprise with open arms

 

[cytg111]

Whatever happened to "Only the Paranoid Survive"?

We are still here.

 

[VirtualLarry]

We are still here.

I believe that was the title of Andy Grove's book.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Whatever happened to "Only the Paranoid Survive"?

If "paranoid" means milking the x86 monopoly cow as much as possible for as long as they could since getting lucked into the business by IBM, then yeah.

 

[DigDog]

reminds me of the fritz chip; "hey, we're gonna build this appliance with this feature from now on". then you tell them their competitors will build them without it, making theirs a superior product, and suddenly the fritz chip is history.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

If "paranoid" means milking the x86 monopoly cow as much as possible for as long as they could since getting lucked into the business by IBM, then yeah.

Free money. You'd be milking that cow too.

 

[dannydiscus]

We are still here.

+1

 

[TeknoBug]

no the internet of things. way way worse.

can't wait for someone to hack my thermostat and crank the heat up to 10000...

or hey we've already seen the jeep be remotely killed while driving.

what could possiblie go wrong.

Hence why I'm avoiding installing an electronic door lock that can be unlocked from a cell phone or those thermostat controllers, etc. Being nearly 100% connected with everything is a really bad idea.

 

[ikachu]

Since we are discussing IoT in this thread, looks like Broadcom sold their IoT business to Cypress Press Release.

 

[aigomorla]

Being nearly 100% connected with everything is a really bad idea.

hence that is where the skynet comment came from...

Give AI control of everything, and watch how fast that spirals down to doom.

 

[Madpacket]

Security of IoT will be handled by advanced Blockchain technology. Much of today's cloud computing and traditional server infrastructure will be unnecessary due to Blockchains with Turing complete capability to allow for secure decentralized computing. The need for traditional centralized computing will start to vanish. Interesting times ahead and the smarter companies are getting in front of this technology now.

Intel with this strategy? Yeah good luck with that.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Free money. You'd be milking that cow too.

Of course everyone totally would. But there is a huge difference between dominating profit share while swimming in a sea of low cost piranhas like Apple versus Intel locking up an entire market for 2 decades and claiming they got there purely with superior products. *cough* RDRAM *cough*

 

[Cogman]

Security of IoT will be handled by advanced Blockchain technology. Much of today's cloud computing and traditional server infrastructure will be unnecessary due to Blockchains with Turing complete capability to allow for secure decentralized computing. The need for traditional centralized computing will start to vanish. Interesting times ahead and the smarter companies are getting in front of this technology now.

Intel with this strategy? Yeah good luck with that.

Blockchains don't provide security. A blockchain computational cluster might (and that is a big might) give you the ability to entrust remote entities with your number crunching and give you a significant boost in computational power.

That does not mean that the algorithm you implement will suddenly be valid, bug free, and secure. Security vulnerabilities are far more often due to logic flaws rather than encryption/trust flaws.

The problem with IoT is that it exposes devices to the general internet public that have never been exposed to the general internet public. Further, these are devices that have traditionally had their software written once and then done. Companies don't generally do firmware updates for your thermostat, fire alarm, smoke detector, or light bulb.

Blockchains don't solve that problem, they only (maybe) provide trusted computational power. Even then, there are simply better optional available today. Why give your computational infrastructure over to a blockchain with undefined response characteristics, availability, and maintenance when today computational power is so incredibly cheap. You would only want to use blockchains for server number crunching, and servers are dirt cheap nowadays. Blockchains are useless for user devices, the responsiveness problem is a real thing and you can have every user interaction taking +100ms to return. You certainly could not write a game using blockchains for computation. Or even something like decrypting streaming video would be impractical with blockchains.

 

[cytg111]

That does not mean that the algorithm you implement will suddenly be valid, bug free, and secure. Security vulnerabilities are far more often due to logic flaws rather than encryption/trust flaws.

- Yea, hardcoded backdoor passes, exploits that never gets fixed etc. How are you gonna do a malware scan on your fridge?

 

[Beer4Me]

Fuck IoT is what I say...

 

[ClockHound]

- Yea, hardcoded backdoor passes, exploits that never gets fixed etc. How are you gonna do a malware scan on your fridge?

Like we have done for decades. Just use your nose.

 

[Cogman]

- Yea, hardcoded backdoor passes, exploits that never gets fixed etc. How are you gonna do a malware scan on your fridge?

Even if you could, what are you going to do about it? The exploited company could easily say "Yeah, your fridge is 2 years old. That model is unsupported now, you need our newest model!"

This is why I despise the rise of smart TVs (and even to some extent the way Cell phones are being treated). Honestly, we need laws which mandate support and perhaps even partial liability to companies whose software is exploited.

It is unethical to expose something to the internet and to stop support for that thing. Devices put on the internet should be guaranteed support by their parent companies for the next 5->10 years at least.

 

[poofyhairguy]

What needs to change is some other OS, besides windows, needs to take over the consumer PC market. Windows could, but people expect backwards compatibility with all their applications.

There is an OS that is doing that- its called Android. Today's "personal computer" is a smartphone.

Chrome OS is adding Android App support this year I bet. Soon "application compatibility" for consumers will mean "can you run X Android app" not the old "can I run Photoshop or such and such AAA game" question that killed the Linux desktop.

 

[DrMrLordX]

Hence why I'm avoiding installing an electronic door lock that can be unlocked from a cell phone or those thermostat controllers, etc. Being nearly 100% connected with everything is a really bad idea.

Eventually it may be difficult to buy anything but IoT devices, unless consumer demand for "dumb" tech remains high.

If you do find yourself in ownership of such a dingus, best to leave it unconfigured and unconnected. Make sure it can't connect to a promiscuous hotspot in your neighborhood, and of course lock down your own hotspots/routers to prevent unwanted connections.

 

[frozentundra123456]

There is an OS that is doing that- its called Android. Today's "personal computer" is a smartphone.

Chrome OS is adding Android App support this year I bet. Soon "application compatibility" for consumers will mean "can you run X Android app" not the old "can I run Photoshop or such and such AAA game" question that killed the Linux desktop.

No, today's personal computer is still a PC if you do anything more than content consumption. I have hated android from the moment I unboxed a POS android Acer tablet, and have never changed my mind one bit.

Office compatibility is still needed for a lot of on-line functions. For instance, I recently filled out an online job application, about 5 pages worth, plus you had to attach a resume and references in Word format. It was a lengthy and painful process on my fast desktop with a full keyboard, mouse and large monitor. I probably would go live in a box somewhere before trying to do that on a tablet or smartphone. And as for the attachments, yea, maybe some bastardized android app (open office or libra office or whatever) would have worked, but for something important like this, does one really want to take the chance? And I cant even imagine doing things like online banking an bill paying on a smart phone. I am sure you can do it, but it is just so much easier on a PC, even a laptop.

Although PCs with Windows 10 and MS's insistence on making you go to the Windows store and get an "app" just like you have to do on android is becoming almost as bad. Want to read a book on you Win 10 tablet? Dont go to the B and N and download Nook. No please go to the Windows store. Yes the app is free, but maybe you will buy something else while you are there.

 

[cytg111]

Even if you could, what are you going to do about it? The exploited company could easily say "Yeah, your fridge is 2 years old. That model is unsupported now, you need our newest model!"

This is why I despise the rise of smart TVs (and even to some extent the way Cell phones are being treated). Honestly, we need laws which mandate support and perhaps even partial liability to companies whose software is exploited.

It is unethical to expose something to the internet and to stop support for that thing. Devices put on the internet should be guaranteed support by their parent companies for the next 5->10 years at least.

Heh, thats why my smarttv is not connected, small unit with a tuner and netflix. Done.
There is one way around all this of course. Open source and open standards.

 

[Cogman]

There is an OS that is doing that- its called Android. Today's "personal computer" is a smartphone.

Chrome OS is adding Android App support this year I bet. Soon "application compatibility" for consumers will mean "can you run X Android app" not the old "can I run Photoshop or such and such AAA game" question that killed the Linux desktop.

Maybe. Certainly mobile OSes have risen dramatically in popularity.

The problem is that the apps for these devices tend to be fairly low quality and minimal. For example, try programming on android. Not a fun experience. The OS just isn't well built for some of the power user things. The fact that it is so hard to interact with the FS (and this is by design) limits what can be done with it.

That isn't to say that android won't start to fill several gaps in the PC market. Rather, it just isn't there yet.

Another big problem with android is the way phone manufactures and carriers are treating it. I good example of this is what T-Mobile has done with the Samsung Galaxy S4. While everyone else got Android 5.0, the S4 is still running Android 4.4 on Tmobile. These sorts of things are unacceptable. A carrier should not have any say in what OS runs on your phone.

So long as this is the case, phones are going to be open to security vulnerabilities which PCs don't have.