In the game of chess, the goal is to win over your opponent either by taking down everyone or cornering the king.  This can be done in a few quick moves or through a very slow and thoughtful process.  But sometimes, when you move too quickly, you end up losing it all.  Same goes for when you take too much time in making a move, the next thing you know, you’re surrendering to your opponent.

Intel’s strategy playing out

And this is what’s happening to Intel right now.  They’re playing a game of chess with AMD, trying to move in the mobile business but still not abandoning their hold on the PC sector. But the thing is, AMD, along with Qualcomm, are pushing to move into Intel’s turf as well, breaking into the Ultrabook sector by making chips that make Ultrabooks function like mobile devices in the sense that they are quick to boot up and use far less energy to operate.

This is not the first time Intel faced a tough opponent.  Let’s take a quick history lesson as to how Intel became the entity they are today.

Quick History

Intel Corp., contrary to popular belief, is not short for “Intelligence Corporation,” it actually stands for Integrated Electronics Corporation, founded by  Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and  Arthur Rock in July 18, 1968.  The company is well known as a  multinational semiconductor chip maker, but they also produce  motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing.  Moore and Noyce thought of naming the company “Moore Noyce” but it sounded too much like “more noise,” which, in the electronics business, isn’t a good name choice.  So they just named it NM Electronics, but in less than a year they changed it to Integrated Electronics Corporation.

Hiccups & Turnarounds

In 1969, their first product was the 3101 Schottky TTL bipolar 64-bit static random-access memory (SRAM), which was almost  twice as fast as the earlier Schottky diode by Fairchild Semiconductor, where Moore and Noyce came from, and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan.  This was quickly followed by the 3301 Schottky bipolar 1024-bit read-only memory (ROM) and the first commercial metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) silicon gate SRAM chip, the 256-bit 1101.

In 1971, they released their first commercially available microprocessor (Intel 4004),followed by the first microcomputer in 1972.  At this point, they were popular for making dynamic random-access memory chips.  But with the growing Japanese competition, they soon decided to focus on making microprocessors.  This was their greatest move, because by the 1990s, Intel had become a household name because of their “Intel Inside” campaign.

After their domination in the 90s, their reign was threatened when the demand for high-end microprocessors started to decline as low-end and mid-range processors from AMD became popular, which in turn took a significant amount in Intel’s market share.

In 2005, then CEO Paul Otellini refocused its core processor and chipset business on platforms (enterprise, digital home, digital health, and mobility) which led to the hiring of over 20,000 new employees.  But in September 2006, due to falling profits, the company announced a restructuring that resulted in layoffs of 10,500 employees or about 10 percent of its workforce by July 2006.

In the following years, Intel’s acquired various companies to regain lost momentum but most of these acquisitions did not bid well like SpectraWatt Inc. which they purchased in 2008 but filed for bankruptcy in 2011.

Back From The Ashes

Since the “in” thing these days are mobile devices, Intel is looking to break in this market. They recently partnered with ZTE Corporation to produce smartphones in the hopes of toppling AMD’s dominanace in the mobile sector.  Aside from this, in the upcoming 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show on January 10-13 at Las Vegas, they will be unveiling Medfield, Intel’s single core chip for tablets and smartphones pegged to come out by the second quarter as well as Clover Trail, either single or dual core Atom chips aimed for tablet use.