Intel’s top management lacks the technical background to decide future technology roadmap, so the long term decision is left to the various engineering groups, and the ederly usually won the argument because of seniority. If you look at AMD, its President, CEO, CTO are all engineering type. There is no way Intel can challenge AMD’s technology superiority with a relatively amateurish engineering force. The result: AMD is always leading the way, and Intel plays catch up. For instance, if you look at the Bensley platform, it is merely an imitation of the discontinued Athlon MP, it is only good for 2P.

In the old days, Intel can use its monopoly power to thwart AMD and buy time. But after AMD’s lawsuit, the old tricks are tougher to carry out, and we see immediate Intel market share drop.

From down here on the bottom of the ladder, I often wonder where the fat actually needs to be trimmed as I work 50 hour weeks doing 140% of my job duties. Granted there are some programs that are wasted money, departments that post a loss year in/out, and people that are basically useless - but there is also a lot of beuracratic crap that needs to go. Just yesterday I was mandated to write a justification for second half spending that took over an hour … we were purchasing 2 LAPTOPS - and that spending has been justified twice already - this was just a poney show for managers. CUT IT!

Hmmm, got a little off topic … guess I needed to rank a minute.

You make some assumptions that are incorrect, for the most part. With very few exceptions, Intel does NOT pay for my gadgets, unless you’re considering the fact that I buy them with the salary that Intel pays me. The exceptions? The Creative Zen Vision that I was given (unsolicited) by the guys in the Digital Home group, and the Mac mini that I’m using on my desk at work.

Also, Intel doesn’t pay for the blogging/podcast related conferences that I go to. Last year, I went to Gnomedex and Portable Media Expo on my own dime, even taking vacation days for the time I was gone. Intel did pay for my trip to PDC, but that was directly related to my job function at the time.

You’re also assuming that all I do is blog and podcast all day. I do sometimes post during the day, at work, but my manager is OK with that, because I also often do work at home, or “off hours”, and frankly, it doesn’t take up that much of my time. My job role is in developing and evangelizing collaboration tools for design engineers. Right now, that’s mostly wikis, and I get 5-6 requests per week to either set up a wiki for some Intel group to use for team collaboration, or to train them on how to use Intelpedia and wikis in general.

As to whether my job is “fat” that needs to be trimmed, I guess that’s for my management chain to decide. But I’m working directly on things that make people able to do their jobs more efficiently, and I’m getting substantial, concrete results.

Thanks for the comment - feel free to follow up with me internally if you’d like to talk about this some more.

–Josh)
Josh, just judging from what I’ve seen of your posts internally and externally, and the seeming focus of your job (blogging, podcasting, wki, etc.) I have a very difficult time seeing how you add enduring value to the corporate bottom line.

I see all of these posts about all of these gadgets you have (I assume the company is paying for most, if not all of them), conferences you go to, all of these posts and comments that you are making during the day (I assume on company time), and I just have to wonder, honestly and truthfully, what value to intel’s mission all of this is adding.

Job functions such as yours are exactly the type of “luxurious” jobs/fat that we need to be cutting. Your salary and gadget costs could be better put to work in other areas of the company, and all of this blogging and other non-productive activity could be dispersed among many other people throughout the company.

Just my two cents.

- A concerned Grade 11 Corporate Manager.