One of my earliest memories of using a PC was in the early 1980s and it was an IBM (News - Alert) PC. Back then the system unit was powered by an Intel 8088 microprocessor. This turned out to be an incredibly influential factor in establishing the Intel (News - Alert) architecture, which is often referred to as the x86 architecture as the standard for a great deal of the personal computer industry.
In those days when a decision needed to be made, seeing that a PC was powered by Intel was usually the deciding factor. Intel dominated the market as being the most reliable processor. There was never a question in my mind about equipment being compatible if the PC was using the Intel chipset.
Since that time, Intel has been adding to its growing chipset list with its Broadwell CPU representing its fifth generation chipset. Intel plans to introduce its next chipset called Skylake. The rumor is that the launch will come at the Gamescom show, which starts on August 5 in Cologne, Germany.
While it is true that over the years Intel has missed the boat on getting a handle on such things as mobile technology, one thing is certain and that is the fact that people still want to see “Intel Inside” on their computers. This can be proven by the fact that second quarter results show that Intel took top honors for the highest number of CPUs sold.
Without committing to an exact number, Intel did mention that it shipped out about ten million chips that were slated for media tablets. We can infer from this that the number of chips shipped for the remaining sectors which include desktops, laptops and servers was much higher.
It seems that overall, platform averages were up between six and nine percent as compared to this time last year. It was expected that the new Atom chips would have an impact and the fact that devices such as the Surface 3 have already been confirmed to be running the latest 14 nm Atom chip, seem to have been a plus for second quarter results. It also does not hurt that Intel combined its mobile and PC divisions earlier this year.
It should come as no surprise that it was the data center group that showed the most promise for this quarter with revenue that was 19 percent better than 2014. This seems to be a constant as first quarter results also showed a 19 percent increase from 2014.
“Second quarter results demonstrate the transformation of our business as growth in data center, memory and IoT accounted for more than 70 percent of our operating profit and helped offset a challenging PC market,” said Intel CEO Brian Krzanich. “We continue to be confident in our growth strategy and are focused on innovation and execution. We expect the launches of Skylake, Microsoft (News - Alert)'s Windows 10 and new OEM systems will bring excitement to client computing in the second half of 2015.”
Edited by Rory J. Thompson