Strategy
Strategy
Our goal is to be the preeminent provider of semiconductor chips and platforms for the worldwide digital economy. As part of our overall strategy to compete in each relevant market segment, we use our core competencies in the design and manufacture of integrated circuits, as well as our financial resources, global presence, and brand recognition. We believe that we have the scale, capacity, and global reach to establish new technologies and respond to customers' needs quickly.
Some of our key focus areas are listed below:
- Customer Orientation. Our strategy focuses on developing our next generation of products based on the needs and expectations of our customers. In turn, our products help enable the design and development of new form factors and usage models for businesses and consumers. We offer platforms that incorporate various components designed and configured to work together to provide an optimized user computing solution compared to components that are used separately.
- Architecture and Platforms. We are developing integrated platform solutions by moving the memory controller and graphics functionality from the chipset to the microprocessor. This platform repartitioning is designed to provide improved performance due to higher integration, lower power consumption, and reduced platform size. In addition, we are focusing on improved energy-efficient performance for computing and communications systems and devices. Improved energy-efficient performance involves balancing improved performance with lower power consumption. We continue to develop multi-core microprocessors with an increasing number of cores, which enable improved multitasking and energy efficiency. We are also focusing on the development of a new highly scalable, many-core architecture aimed at parallel processing. This architecture will initially be used in developing discrete graphics processors designed for gaming and media creation. Over time, this architecture may be utilized in the development of products for scientific and professional workstations as well as high-performance computing applications.
- Silicon and Manufacturing Technology Leadership. Our strategy for developing microprocessors with improved performance is to synchronize the introduction of a new microarchitecture with improvements in silicon process technology. We plan to introduce a new microarchitecture approximately every two years and ramp the next generation of silicon process technology in the intervening years. This coordinated schedule allows us to develop and introduce new products based on a common microarchitecture quickly, without waiting for the next generation of silicon process technology. We refer to this as our "tick-tock" technology development cadence.
- Strategic Investments. We make equity investments in companies around the world that we believe will generate returns, further our strategic objectives, and support our key business initiatives. Our investments, including those made through our Intel Capital program, generally focus on investing in companies and initiatives to stimulate growth in the digital economy, create new business opportunities for Intel, and expand global markets for our products. Our current investments focus on the following areas: advancing flash memory products, enabling mobile wireless devices, advancing the digital home, enhancing the digital enterprise, advancing high-performance communications infrastructures, and developing the next generation of silicon process technologies. Our focus areas and investment activities tend to develop and change over time due to rapid advancements in technology and changes in the economic climate.
- Business Environment and Software. We believe that we are well positioned in the technology industry to help drive innovation, foster collaboration, and promote industry standards that will yield innovation and improved technologies for users. We plan to continue to cultivate new businesses and work to encourage the industry to offer products that take advantage of the latest market trends and usage models. We frequently participate in industry initiatives designed to discuss and agree upon technical specifications and other aspects of technologies that could be adopted as standards by standards-setting organizations. In addition, we work collaboratively with other companies to protect digital content and the consumer. Lastly, through our Software and Services Group (SSG), we help enable and advance the computing ecosystem by providing development tools and support to help software developers create software applications and operating systems that take advantage of our platforms.
We believe that the proliferation of the Internet, including user demand for premium content and rich media, drives the need for greater performance in PCs and servers. A growing number of older PCs are increasingly incapable of handling the tasks that users demand, such as streaming video, uploading photos, and online gaming. As these tasks become even more demanding and require more computing power, we believe that users will need and want to buy new PCs to perform everyday tasks on the Internet. We also believe that increased Internet traffic creates a need for greater server infrastructure, including server products optimized for energy-efficient performance.
The trend of mobile microprocessor unit growth outpacing the growth in desktop microprocessor units has continued, and shipments of our mobile microprocessors exceeded our desktop microprocessors for the first time in the second quarter of 2008. We believe that the demand for mobile microprocessors will result in the increased development of products with form factors and uses that require low-power microprocessors.
Our silicon and manufacturing technology leadership allows us to develop low-power microprocessors for new uses and form factors. We believe that these low-power microprocessors give us the ability to extend Intel architecture and drive growth in new market segments, including a growing number of products that require processors specifically designed for embedded solutions, MIDs, consumer electronics devices, nettops, and netbooks. We believe that the common elements for products in these new market segments are low power consumption and the ability to access the Internet. We also offer, and are continuing to develop, SoC products that integrate core processing functionality with specific components, such as graphics, audio, and video, onto a single chip to form a purpose-built solution. This integration reduces cost, power consumption, and size.
