Pat Gelsinger was just named Intel’s new CEO earlier this week, and apparently with a bold start to a recent employee meeting where Gelsinger told employees that Intel should deliver better computer products than anything made by the ‘Cupertino lifestyle company’. Ouch.
Many analysts have called for a rocky tenure due to multiple delays in the development of Intel’s chips and a number of major declines in the share price during 2020. Intel replaces outgoing CEO Bob Swan.
As a former Intel employee and one of the original architects of Intel’s 80486 processor, Gelsinger, who is leaving his previous position as CEO of VMware, is seen as an expert product that will take much hope Intel can take back to the days when its chips had significant performance advantages over competitors such as AMD and ARM.
According to the Oregonian, Gelsinger, who reported on the recent employee meeting, will have to manage Intel’s future processors as the company tries to decide whether or not to outsource chip production to third-party foundries owned by TSMC or possibly Samsung. As companies such as AMD, Apple and others have recently made the move to 7nm and 5nm nodes for their latest chips, Intel’s continued struggle to move to its own 7nm process has led to numerous hits for Intel, in terms of performance and overall market share.
G / O Media can get a commission
More importantly, with Apple recently becoming proficient in designing chips begins to switch its entire computer range after its own designed ARM-based chips, Intel will lose a significant amount of sales, as Apple is estimated to represent as much as 5% of Intel’s annual revenue. Furthermore, with Apple wanting to devour more of the PC and laptop market and AMD surpassing Intel’s CPU with a performance-per-dollar ratio, Intel will have to make some strong draws to get the ship right.
“We need to deliver better products to the computer ecosystem than any possible thing a lifestyle business in Cupertino has,” Gelsinger said. ‘If done well, [our research and manufacturing] has established Intel as a leader in every way. ”
But for a company that had a significant setback for both the production and design of the chips, even for a respected veteran like Gelsinger, who will bring Intel back to its former glory, is going to be a big challenge.
Gelsinger’s official term as Intel’s new CEO begins on February 15.