{"id":193382,"date":"2025-09-01T19:22:43","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T19:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/?p=193382"},"modified":"2025-09-04T16:09:26","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T16:09:26","slug":"intels-journey-from-dominance-to-disruption-in-the-tech-landscape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/builder\/intels-journey-from-dominance-to-disruption-in-the-tech-landscape\/","title":{"rendered":"Intel’s journey: From dominance to disruption in the tech landscape"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post<\/a> was originally published on this site<\/a><\/p>

<\/p>\n

We have just witnessed one of the most bizarre developments in the history of technology. It involves a technology company that defined an era. Fast Company is documenting the history of Intel and its impact on society as artificial intelligence is challenging its grip on power. Here\u2019s our first stab at the history of  technology companies as outlined by <\/span>Harry McCracken.<\/span><\/p>\n

On August 22, President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that the US federal government had acquired 10% of Intel. The chipmaker\u2019s news release trumpeted the deal as \u201chistoric.\u201d That it was. But it was also ignominious.<\/span><\/p>\n

In Trump\u2019s own account, he had humbled an iconic American company. Maybe even shaken it down. Fifteen days earlier, he posted to Truth Social that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan had ties to China, which left him \u201chighly CONFLICTED\u201d and demanded his immediate resignation. On August 11, Tan visited the White House. On August 22, the deal was official.<\/span><\/p>\n

The US\u2019s ownership stake in Intel doesn\u2019t involve any new funds. Instead, it\u2019s a retroactive quid pro quo for $8.9 billion the company had already been granted but not yet paid through the US CHIPS and Science Act. Joe Biden signed that bill three years ago, a $280 billion gambit to reverse the decades-long flight of chip manufacturing to Asia.<\/span><\/p>\n

As Trump put it, Tan \u201cwalked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion [the approximate value of the 10% stake] for the United States.\u201d Notably, <\/span>The Wall Street Journal<\/span><\/i>\u2019s Robbie Whelan, Yang Jie, and Amrith Ramkumar reported that Taiwan\u2019s TSMC, the world\u2019s largest chip manufacturer, pushed back against forking over any equity to the US \u2014 even if declining to do so would require it to give up CHIPS Act money it was getting to help expand its production capacity in Arizona.<\/span><\/p>\n

For anyone who lived through the PC\u2019s heyday in the 1990s, seeing Intel run out of options is a stunning development. It\u2019s not just that it dominated the market for PC processors so utterly that after years of shrinkage it still has <\/span>close to a 75% share<\/span>. More than any other company, Intel once controlled the moving parts that kept the technology business booming. In a sense, the entire PC industry became a front for it, to a degree that wasn\u2019t obvious then and has since faded into history.<\/span><\/p>\n

For instance, Intel engineers invented USB, maybe the most significant new PC technology of the 1990s. It didn\u2019t pioneer Wi-Fi, but its decision to integrate it into a processor\u20142003\u2019s Centrino\u2014helped make it standard equipment on every laptop. When Apple\u2019s thin-and-light MacBook Air became a hit and Intel was concerned that Windows portables were clunky by comparison, it came up with the Air-like Ultrabook; PC makers merely followed its lead.<\/span><\/p>\n

Intel also supplied the motherboards many manufacturers used, allowing it to define a computer\u2019s feature set and even its shape. In such cases, building a PC amounted to little more than filling out its platform with components such as memory and storage and wrapping a case around it.<\/span><\/p>\n

The company\u2019s grip on the industry wasn\u2019t just technological. Starting in 1991, its \u201cIntel Inside\u201d campaign convinced millions of people to pay attention to the chips that powered computers. But Intel didn\u2019t just buy ads on its own. It also established a co-op fund that paid up to half the cost of ads placed by PC companies. More than 500 of them participated in the program, including brand names such as Dell, HP, IBM, Sony, and Toshiba.<\/span><\/p>\n

The co-op dollars manufacturers received were tied to the quantity of Intel processors they purchased. Naturally, ads subsidised by the fund were required to highlight the \u201cIntel Inside\u201d message. They also couldn\u2019t mention models using chips from other companies\u2014a stipulation that put longtime Intel rival AMD at a massive disadvantage, regardless of the quality of its products.<\/span><\/p>\n

Intel\u2019s co-op dollars indirectly paid for a disproportionate share of the entire PC business\u2019s marketing budget. At first, magazines such as my former employer <\/span>PC World<\/span><\/i> benefited from the company\u2019s largesse. Later, when Intel instructed manufacturers to divert ad dollars to the web, the magazines felt it in the pocketbook.<\/span><\/p>\n

For a technology company, being all-powerful has its downsides. Andy Grove, Intel\u2019s third employee and its CEO from 1987 to 1998, summed up his fear of resting on one\u2019s laurels in the title of his 1996 bestseller, <\/span>Only the Paranoid Survive<\/span><\/i>. By the early years of this century, however, Intel began to radiate not paranoia but complacency. As the world changed, it didn\u2019t. The results were disastrous.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the 1990s, for example, Intel focused on integrating graphics into its CPUs rather than designing more powerful discrete graphics processors\u2014the kind sold by smaller, specialized chipmakers such as Nvidia. Then Nvidia proved its graphics chips were also adept at running <\/span>AI<\/span> algorithms. Now it\u2019s the world\u2019s most valuable public company, with a market cap quadruple the size of Intel\u2019s.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then there were phones. Intel talked to Apple about providing the processor for the first iPhone, but concluded it couldn\u2019t turn a profit on the deal. Smartphones went on to be bigger than the PC ever was\u2014and almost none of them ever had Intel Inside.<\/span><\/p>\n

For years, Intel had been synonymous with Moore\u2019s law, its cofounder Gordon Moore\u2019s observation that the number of transistors that could fit on an integrated circuit doubled every two years. As tech\u2019s engines of progress moved beyond the PC, even its ability to stay on the cutting edge of chip manufacturing faltered. When longtime executive Pat Gelsinger rejoined the company as CEO in 2021, it was in desperate need of a turnaround.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gelsinger\u2019s ambitious strategy involved getting its manufacturing advances back on track and becoming a contract manufacturer (\u201cfoundry\u201d) for chips designed by others. But Intel\u2019s board ousted him after less than four years, before his vision could play out. That led to Tan\u2019s appointment and, five months later, the Trump deal.<\/span><\/p>\n

Wesley Diphoko is a Technology Analyst and Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company (South Africa) magazine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Wesley Diphoko is technology analyst and Editor-In-Chief of FastCompany (SA) magazine.<\/em><\/p>\n

* More on this History of Tech, visit FastCompany (SA)<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or IOL.<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

BUSINESS REPORT<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have just witnessed one of the most bizarre developments in the history of technology. It involves a technology company that defined an era. Fast Company is documenting the history of Intel and its impact on society as artificial intelligence is challenging its grip on power. Here\u2019s our first stab at the history of\u00a0 technology companies as outlined by Harry McCracken.On August 22, President Donald Trump announced via Truth Social that the US federal government had acquired 10% of Intel. The chipmaker\u2019s news release trumpeted the deal as \u201chistoric.\u201d That it was. But it was also ignominious.In Trump\u2019s own account, he had humbled an iconic American company. Maybe even shaken it down. Fifteen days earlier, he posted to Truth Social that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan had ties to China, which left him \u201chighly CONFLICTED\u201d and demanded his immediate resignation. On August 11, Tan visited the White House. On August 22, the deal was official.The US\u2019s ownership stake in Intel doesn\u2019t involve any new funds. Instead, it\u2019s a retroactive quid pro quo for $8.9 billion the company had already been granted but not yet paid through the US CHIPS and Science Act. Joe Biden signed that bill three years ago, a $280 billion gambit to reverse the decades-long flight of chip manufacturing to Asia.As Trump put it, Tan \u201cwalked in wanting to keep his job, and he ended up giving us $10 billion [the approximate value of the 10% stake] for the United States.\u201d Notably, The Wall Street Journal\u2019s Robbie Whelan, Yang Jie, and Amrith Ramkumar reported that Taiwan\u2019s TSMC, the world\u2019s largest chip manufacturer, pushed back against forking over any equity to the US \u2014 even if declining to do so would require it to give up CHIPS Act money it was getting to help expand its production capacity in Arizona.For anyone who lived through the PC\u2019s heyday in the 1990s, seeing Intel run out of options is a stunning development. It\u2019s not just that it dominated the market for PC processors so utterly that after years of shrinkage it still has close to a 75% share. More than any other company, Intel once controlled the moving parts that kept the technology business booming. In a sense, the entire PC industry became a front for it, to a degree that wasn\u2019t obvious then and has since faded into history.For instance, Intel engineers invented USB, maybe the most significant new PC technology of the 1990s. It didn\u2019t pioneer Wi-Fi, but its decision to integrate it into a processor\u20142003\u2019s Centrino\u2014helped make it standard equipment on every laptop. When Apple\u2019s thin-and-light MacBook Air became a hit and Intel was concerned that Windows portables were clunky by comparison, it came up with the Air-like Ultrabook; PC makers merely followed its lead.Intel also supplied the motherboards many manufacturers used, allowing it to define a computer\u2019s feature set and even its shape. In such cases, building a PC amounted to little more than filling out its platform with components such as memory and storage and wrapping a case around it.The company\u2019s grip on the industry wasn\u2019t just technological. Starting in 1991, its \u201cIntel Inside\u201d campaign convinced millions of people to pay attention to the chips that powered computers. But Intel didn\u2019t just buy ads on its own. It also established a co-op fund that paid up to half the cost of ads placed by PC companies. More than 500 of them participated in the program, including brand names such as Dell, HP, IBM, Sony, and Toshiba.The co-op dollars manufacturers received were tied to the quantity of Intel processors they purchased. Naturally, ads subsidised by the fund were required to highlight the \u201cIntel Inside\u201d message. They also couldn\u2019t mention models using chips from other companies\u2014a stipulation that put longtime Intel rival AMD at a massive disadvantage, regardless of the quality of its products.Intel\u2019s co-op dollars indirectly paid for a disproportionate share of the entire PC business\u2019s marketing budget. At first, magazines such as my former employer PC World benefited from the company\u2019s largesse. Later, when Intel instructed manufacturers to divert ad dollars to the web, the magazines felt it in the pocketbook.For a technology company, being all-powerful has its downsides. Andy Grove, Intel\u2019s third employee and its CEO from 1987 to 1998, summed up his fear of resting on one\u2019s laurels in the title of his 1996 bestseller, Only the Paranoid Survive. By the early years of this century, however, Intel began to radiate not paranoia but complacency. As the world changed, it didn\u2019t. The results were disastrous.In the 1990s, for example, Intel focused on integrating graphics into its CPUs rather than designing more powerful discrete graphics processors\u2014the kind sold by smaller, specialized chipmakers such as Nvidia. Then Nvidia proved its graphics chips were also adept at running AI algorithms. Now it\u2019s the world\u2019s most valuable public company, with a market cap quadruple the size of Intel\u2019s.And then there were phones. Intel talked to Apple about providing the processor for the first iPhone, but concluded it couldn\u2019t turn a profit on the deal. Smartphones went on to be bigger than the PC ever was\u2014and almost none of them ever had Intel Inside.For years, Intel had been synonymous with Moore\u2019s law, its cofounder Gordon Moore\u2019s observation that the number of transistors that could fit on an integrated circuit doubled every two years. As tech\u2019s engines of progress moved beyond the PC, even its ability to stay on the cutting edge of chip manufacturing faltered. When longtime executive Pat Gelsinger rejoined the company as CEO in 2021, it was in desperate need of a turnaround.Gelsinger\u2019s ambitious strategy involved getting its manufacturing advances back on track and becoming a contract manufacturer (\u201cfoundry\u201d) for chips designed by others. But Intel\u2019s board ousted him after less than four years, before his vision could play out. That led to Tan\u2019s appointment and, five months later, the Trump deal.Wesley Diphoko is a Technology Analyst and Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company (South Africa) magazine.Wesley Diphoko is technology analyst and Editor-In-Chief of FastCompany (SA) magazine.* More on this History of Tech, visit FastCompany (SA)*** The views expressed here do not necessarily represent those of Independent Media or\u00a0IOL.BUSINESS REPORT<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":193384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-193382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-builder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193382"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":193385,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193382\/revisions\/193385"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.premium-partners.net\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}