Intel will cut jobs to maintain lead over AMD

Just saw on CNN that Intel will cut more jobs from it’s 100,000 worldwide workforce. This is on top of the previous job cuts of about 1,000 managers lately. Reports says the cuts could be between 10,000 to 20,000 employees.

This seems to be Intel’s logical step to maintain it’s lead over growing competitor Advance Micro Devices (AMD). The Opteron is held to be a much better processor in the server line and companies such as Dell are ordering AMD chips in for their desktop PCs.

The job cuts might seem a drastic move for Intel just so it could regain it’s market share but there’s no other way. Intel has already dropped it cpu pricing and could slash some more anytime soon. Is laying off a ton of people gonna help them? Maybe. The cashflow might look better right after but I don’t see it helping them in the long run. Still, that does not change the fact that AMD is becoming a better processor chipmaker.

It just boils down to two things — which chip is faster and cheaper at the same time. Intel? AMD? Let the market decide.

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

3 Comments

kid says:

18 years ago

They’ve been reigning supreme in the notebook market due to the Centrino platform. With AMD’s buying of ATI, AMD will be able to offer a more viable and affordable alternative to the Centrino. If I were Intel I’d also be wary, but I don’t think laying off people will help maintain their market share
- Reply
Miguel says:

18 years ago

This is ironic because Intel now has the superior platform (Core 2) while AMD’s K8L quad-cores will have to wait til mid 2007.

But you know what the biggest competitor of AMD and Intel are? There is little need for people to upgrade and buy new PC’s. I’m having the upgrade itch but there’s no real reason for me to buy a new home PC.
- Reply
kid says:

18 years ago

@migs: i agree with you on that both points. currently they’re still leading the market. there’s just a potential challenge from amd but nothing definite yet.

i still have a duron 800MHz desktop and a celeron 2GHz and they’re still zippy for most of their purposes. i just maxed out their RAM with what’s still available in the market. i don’t know if it’s also a factor that microsoft hasn’t released a new version of their OS in a long span of time.
- Reply