Activist hedge fund advises Intel to outsource CPU manufacturing
Activist hedge fund Third Point has taken a stake of nearly $1 billion in Intel and called on the chipmaker to consider shedding its manufacturing operations, throwing a core part of its strategy into question.
The firm with $15 billion in assets run by Daniel Loeb made a number of demands in a letter sent to Intel's chairman Omar Ishrak on Tuesday and seen by the Financial Times.
In the letter, Mr Loeb said that Intel was "once the gold standard for innovative microprocessor manufacturing" but had fallen behind manufacturing competitors in East Asia such as TSMC and Samsung.
[...] Bob Swan, [Intel's] chief executive, has indicated that he will decide early next year whether Intel should outsource a significant part of its most advanced manufacturing, or even get out of leading-edge production altogether, after a series of slips.
It has already been reported that TSMC may manufacture products such as high performance GPUs and Atom and Xeon CPUs for Intel.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @02:21PM (3 children)
Finally, somebody takes the heat off civil servants.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @03:50PM (2 children)
Let me guess... sell off the profit-making parts of company and take a 10% cut off the top?
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Friday January 01 2021, @05:15PM (1 child)
That is the old ways. There is a new game in town you may have already noticed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @02:50AM
Hire only foreign workers, move the company's manufacturing to a foreign power, replace the entire C-level board with foreign agents, take a 5 or 6-figure kickback from that foreign country, and have the feds shut down any criticism of your decisions as "right-wing extremist white supremacy"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday January 01 2021, @02:26PM (26 children)
The whole moronic part about the endless outsourcing push, is that eventually, those companies that do the work learn enough that they don't need your IP.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 01 2021, @02:41PM (25 children)
Defense of trade secrets and IP does not seem a good reason not to outsource. A better reason is that if you don't do it yourself, you lose the expertise.
Another likely factor is an anti-social one that they couldn't spell out without getting in trouble: externalization of costs. They would rather pollute in China and Taiwan than in the US where they might be forced to not make a mess.
Yeah, it is moronic. I saw a proposal to outsource all a manufacturer's engineering work to India. Strangely, the person proposing this was one of the engineers. I asked what would be left of the company in the US, if they did it. Just the executives? They'd already moved much of the manufacturing to Mexico.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @03:53PM
Same strategy used in universities. Get rid of the grown ups who can do the work and retain the non-functional professors and untrained students.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Friday January 01 2021, @03:59PM (18 children)
Because outsourcing to China works so well - until it doesn't. PPE shortages, anyone?
China will have a larger GDP than the USA later this decade. 50 years of selling off less profitable industries and now you see the end result.
The only flaw in China's plan for world dominance is it's dependent on Africa's becoming a large consumer captive market. Global warming means that isn't going to happen.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @04:02PM (6 children)
If you believe in global warming, then China is absolutely fucked. In 10 years their economy will be based on building ever higher sea walls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @05:49PM
Ironically, this would be just fine for them, they just require something to do to make their economy work.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @07:05PM
Remind me to sell my share in 9 years, thanks.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday January 01 2021, @08:35PM
Well, they could relocate into the mountains. They have lots and lots of mountains.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by pvanhoof on Friday January 01 2021, @10:42PM (2 children)
Worked fine for the Dutch. And their economy ain't a bad one.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @12:14AM (1 child)
They eat fries with mayo.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:45AM
Not quite mayo. It's called frietsaus and the closest I've gotten to it here in Montreal is by mixing mayo with mustard. Not bad at all, but the restaurants here that serve fries serve their mayo and mustard in tiny little packages that are a lot of work to open, and you need a lot of them. Why can't they just use a squeeze bottle like they do for ketchup?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @05:24PM (10 children)
Oh, China making disposable spears now?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Friday January 01 2021, @06:02PM (8 children)
The myth was that increased education would lower birth rates. They dropped from over 6 to 4, then stopped dropping. -
It's the same story in parts of the Middle East. A Syrian was complaining that half his 20 children had died of malnutrition and hunger. Never mentioned his multiple wives and how they were doing, because they don't count. And of course he's part of the problem. But totally clueless.
No kids, 1 kid, two kids, sure. Three kids is borderline nowadays. 4 kids or more is irresponsible. Doesn't matter how rich you are, because we're all stuck with the consequences of overpopulation.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @07:02PM
Maybe that clever Mr Musk will take them away to Mars?
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday January 01 2021, @09:08PM (5 children)
Ahh, the smell of Malthusian thinking on a New Year's Day.
There is a cure: empower women. Syria, and a great deal of the Islamic world, is stuck in a vicious patriarchal society. As you say, the multiple wives (up to 4, that's what Islam permits) don't count.
Just think about this, when you worry about overpopulation. Life has had to deal with this problem ever since there's been life. Life forms that are restrained, either through predation or by voluntary self-restraint, are more fit. There are mechanisms in place, even if we don't know it.
However, the restraints aren't perfect, and right now, we may be in one of those rare situations where the restraints have been broken, and we may yet overpopulate and suffer the consequences.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Friday January 01 2021, @11:24PM (4 children)
Cultural indoctrination is powerful. Just look at you.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @01:50AM
Some people value different things in life than you. Get over it, totalitarian.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday January 03 2021, @07:48PM (2 children)
I'm not seeing in what way you perceive me to be indoctrinated.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday January 04 2021, @02:47AM (1 child)
Nowadays the average woman has more education than the average man. And still earns less on average. Gender parity has fallen into reverse during the pandemic, with equal pay expected to take 182 years. Or basically never if you're a member of a minority.
And as I pointed out, you believe the doctrine that educating women will bring lower birth rates, when this has not been the case in Africa.
So yes, you've been indoctrinated.
Women need to do more than get educated. Power needs to be taken, not asked for. You don't ask for a raise - you demand it, because otherwise you'll be told that there's no money for it because the guys demanded and get their raises. Happens all the time.
The guys want to be pricks, the women need to be royally passed off cunts. And be more ready to quit and take risks, because staying long term in an inequitable situation is riskier.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday January 05 2021, @06:17PM
I said "empower" not "educate". Nothing wrong with education, of course. It helps, even when it isn't enough.
What's really needed is women's rights-- the right to abortions, vote, participate in the justice system on an equal basis-- in short, equal rights for everyone. No asinine restrictions such as Saudi Arabia's law that forbids women to drive. Patriarchies absolutely hate empowerment for women. They also hate education for women.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:28AM
Not a myth. Those fertility rates are still dropping [macrotrends.net]. For example, over the past four years, Africa's fertility rate has dropped by over 1% per year which is actually a faster rate of decline than the average from 1970 to present (~-0.06 births per woman per year decline in fertility per year versus ~-0.05 averaged since 1970).
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @07:02PM
You forget who is in Africa. It's 100% smart phone sales now.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 01 2021, @04:23PM (1 child)
Funny, that. I knew, but never put it into words, that all Intel plants are in the US and/or "first world" countries. Actually looking for that information, I see 11 plants in the US, one in Israel, one in Ireland, and one in China. The one in China has only been in operation for ~ten years. (I haven't kicked the Irish in a long time - do they qualify as "first world"?)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_sites [wikipedia.org]
So, despite my dislike for Intel, we've got to give the devil his due. Locating in first world countries, and using first world labor (some of which may be union labor?) has been highly profitable for intel for fifty+ years. Note the "highly profitable". Intel isn't just surviving by the skin of their teeth.
Obviously, first world rules, regulations, environmental laws, and labor laws don't put Intel at much, if any, disadvantage.
Food for thought the next time some idiot tells us that it's necessary to outsource our jobs to take advantage of cheap labor.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Friday January 01 2021, @04:53PM
The same with a lot of the commercial AI, which isn't even AI.
What happens when the surveillance capitalism market fails and competitors who can broker ads with 1/100,000 the computing power can serve op ads for 1/100 the price that are just as effective ? Welcome to good enough computing on a broad scale. That kind of kills both google and Facebook business models.
Funny thing is, the company I wrote the servers for serves ads without snooping on users. Ads at 1/10 a cent to 10 cents an ad, are profitable in volume. And don't require much cpu to serve them.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @06:44PM (2 children)
I used to work for the once mighty Xerox corporation, in the UK. About a decade ago a PHB/MBA decided that outsourcing was the way forward and all engineering outside the USA got outsourced to India.
All sorts of fantastic promises were made, including about IP. Not long after our work got transferred to India (the outsourcing company also did work for HP) but another office directly across the street in the same city in India, to do work for HP, mysteriously sprung up.
When you start outsourcing things like that, you are bust, You have run out of ideas. Time to retire.
By the way, the Indian guy who was my replacement who I had to train up wasn't stupid. He realised he was was being exploited and "took responsibility" for his own destiny. He was a very nice guy and we had him round for Christmas dinner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @06:56PM (1 child)
... He was a very nice guy and we had him round for Christmas dinner.
Is that you Hannibal?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @07:08PM
He was a teetotal Hindu vegetarian.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 01 2021, @02:32PM (5 children)
Loeb is obviously one of those modern economists who understand nothing about economy. As much as I dislike Intel, they have a winning strategy, that has worked well for decades now. They should reshuffle everything, and start divesting and offshoring, just because some economists says to? Phhhtttt.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by leon_the_cat on Friday January 01 2021, @03:03PM (3 children)
Economist? He's a hedge fund manager and more closely related to sharks. He will try and divide up intel for his own profit. Then his friends and family will get fantastic outsourcing contracts.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 01 2021, @03:42PM (1 child)
Dividing up Intel would only be his goal if he was a complete retard. Since he is a hedge fund manager, while being a bit of a retard and definitely unethical, I don't see him being that dumb. There is likely another reason for this.
Let me rewrite the summary a little to make my point clear:
Small-time Hedge Fund (worth $15b according to them, worth $10b according to google) buys a 1/240 non-voting share of Intel (worth $240b) class C stock. Then writes Intel a letter on how to run their company.
The guy is dumb, but I think he can't be soylent-AC level dumb. My little theory is the point of this letter was to make news. The Hedge Fund in question holds some alibaba stock, and alibaba has been trying to make their own CPUs lately. And by "some alibaba stock" I mean it's the second highest out of all their holdings.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @05:34PM
Are you saying the news media is the gullible vulnerable toy bot of, well, anyone, ethical or not, who wants free advertising and to manipulate the masses? Say it isn't so!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @05:54PM
More like the sea lamprey than a shark.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Saturday January 02 2021, @07:15PM
Intel's strategy is not working and their stock price reflects it. They've been late to market with several generations of chips and are losing market share to Arm and AMD. Their prior business model was based on having huge volumes that let them invest in R&D for new fabrication techniques and be a generation ahead of their competitors. They have been a generation behind their competitors for several years now. The cost of new fab techniques keeps going up with every generation. The rest of the market has split into companies that run fabs and companies that design chips. This allows companies like TSMC to invest huge amounts in fab development and then amortise that across multiple customers while all of their customers benefit from those shared costs but don't take the risk of the R&D individually. Companies like Apple or Qualcomm can design chips and then fab them with TSMC, Samsung, or one of a few other companies, whoever has the price / performance point that they want.
Intel has tried repeatedly to get other companies to use their fabs to help offset some of the R&D costs but everyone knows that Intel chips will be the highest priority in Intel fabs and so they haven't had much success. Spinning off their fabs would put them on the same playing field as everyone else.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 4, Insightful) by looorg on Friday January 01 2021, @03:13PM (24 children)
Sounds like a surefire way to become irrelevant, they should just become some sort of IP-portfolio company. A lot of companies that go down that path eventually find out that they are nothing and eventually someone else buys them for the only thing they have, their patents and then they fade away into oblivion or gets to become a "brand" on the products of someone else.
If I read it right Loeb is upset cause Intel isn't market leading anymore like they once was back in ye' olden days?
So he wants to outsource manufacturing to, I best guess, someone in Asia but is then concerned about how it would effect the company and America if all the manufacturing was moved to geopolitically unstable regions (ie China or someone close). He wants it both ways somehow? Shouldn't his activism be that IBM should man up and start manufacturing better in the USA then? I guess no mere mortal should try and understand MBA-investment-logic.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @03:56PM
Translation: Mr Loeb bought stock in Intel and now wishes he'd bought AMD. The rest translates as "Waaah waaaah waaaaaaaah!"
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by Mojibake Tengu on Friday January 01 2021, @04:18PM (12 children)
I am afraid it is actually the USA what's the most geopolitically unstable region today. And tomorrow. By clean out Intel assets, the Jews and Arabs are just trying to rescue their money. That's their only logic.
I expect new Intel Fabs in Saudia and Emirates soon.
Why? 'Loeb' means Levi, that's the absolute top level priests caste in Jewish tribal hierarchy of power. His word is a Law.
The edge of 太玄 cannot be defined, for it is beyond every aspect of design
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 01 2021, @04:45PM (11 children)
That's a surprising assessment for Mojibake. I might expect such an assessment from some of our other members, but not from you. You are discounting all of the mideast, and much of Africa, and promoting the US to "most unstable"? Some countries in Asia and Indonesia are also considerably less stable, along with Mexico and other Latin American countries. For that matter, we can't forget certain European and eastern Asian nations with recent uprisings.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2017-05-11/the-10-least-politically-stable-countries-ranked-by-perception [usnews.com]
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-world-s-least-fragile-countries.html [worldatlas.com]
I don't think I agree with either of those lists, this one looks more accurate:
https://ceoworld.biz/2016/08/10/worlds-20-least-stable-countries-2016/ [ceoworld.biz]
Any such list will be subjective, I suspect, but the US is nowhere near "least stable".
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @05:33PM (3 children)
Maybe he has plans for Jan 20th that we don't know about?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 01 2021, @05:42PM (2 children)
Worst case scenario - Trump refuses to leave even after Congress certifies a Biden win. Only a small number of SS, police, and military back Trump. He's booted no later than Jan 30, and the country goes back to it's normal corruption.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @09:10PM (1 child)
I've dreamed for four years of normal non-supercharged corruption. Bonus for less Nazi too! How sad those are actual goals.
Thaaaanks dumdums
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @12:02AM
Dude, you are delusional. The little bits of alleged corruption (hotel bills!! LOL) that Trump committed are absolutely tiny little peanuts next to the giant helpings of corruption normal politicians commit.
"Remember, 50% to the big guy."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @05:59PM (5 children)
I hear you, but if I understand Mojibake, (s)he's looking at long-term worldwide trends, like over the past 50 or 100 years, certainly the past couple of years, and especially looking at the recent political atmosphere. We (USA) have always had our differences, and sometimes bitter fights, but the Civil War taught us the consequences of not compromising, or at least not hearing each other out... until recently.
I've always had great faith in the American spirit and our unity despite differences, but I'm losing that faith. If I were any kind of large-scale manufacturer or fund manager, I'd be very cautious about investing anything in the US for at least the next couple of years.
And that caution has a deleterious effect on the job market, which impacts the labor force and who goes to school for what, and overall we (America) are being dumbed-down.
Couple that with our engineering and technical talent being "outsourced", "offshored", H1-B replaced, and the best and brightest are going into other fields (like hedge-fund management).
I wish I could be more optimistic, but I see the US as becoming more and more a nation of individuals, lacking unity, internal fighting when someone tries to unify us against an extremely competitive unified hell-bent-on-world-domination monster. I don't hate China, nor India, nor anyone else at all, but I hate the spirit of wanting to crush the US and much of the "Western world". I'm not sure there will be enough left in us to ward off a real attack if and when that happens.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @01:06AM (1 child)
> and the best and brightest are going into other fields (like hedge-fund management).
If these hedge fund mavens are so sharp, why don't they look for low hanging fruit in China to raid. There must be all kinds of enterprises that the gov't is cutting loose with their new "Socialism with Chinese characteristics" policy.
I'm aware that China has various rules about foreign ownership, but that kind of bureaucracy should be surmountable by these bright hedge fund managers?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:47AM
Not my area of expertise, but I'd speculate that CCP's power and influence makes it quite risky. Plus, a large percentage of Chinese businesses are owned by, or at least heavily controlled by CCP. I'd hate for my huge investment to be annexed by CCP. All that said, Intel, Apple, Tesla, and likely hundreds of others have, or are planning factories in China.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @02:01AM (2 children)
Quoth the parent:
“Civil War taught us the consequences of not compromising, or at least not hearing each other out... until recently.”
It did no such thing. The only thing it established is that might makes right and once in the Union, you will never be allowed to leave.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:43AM
I don't know the word for people like you, but you're very a myopic, narrow-minded, binary thinker. Life is much more complex than you seem to think. Just because you didn't learn, or people you choose to only look at didn't learn, doesn't mean the rest of society didn't learn.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:54AM
Your opening "It did no such thing" reveals you to be argumentative and borderline eristic, rather than contributory in a dialog.
Your contentious attitude aside, I'll strongly agree that the US Federal government has been growing stronger and stronger, well, for most of 240 years. It's pretty out of control. Not sure if it can be fixed.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday January 02 2021, @04:58AM
Sorry, it shouldn't be. He's been going on like this for a while.
Here, the claim is ludicrous. For example, the EU recently lost 10% of its population with the departure of the UK. Meanwhile the US hasn't seen significant changes in territory since it voluntarily relinquished the Philippines in 1946. One can see similar political turmoil on the European side with a number of constitutions having to be revised (not merely amended, completely redone) in that 74 year period. Yet the US is "most unstable"? It's not the most unstable even among developed world countries.
And of course, once you consider the rest of the world, it's not even close.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 01 2021, @04:33PM (3 children)
I want to quibble over your (or Loeb's) definition of "geopolitically unstable". China is quite stable, and I might even argue that they are among the most stable in the world. As a country (defined by it's people) China is not going anywhere - they are stable as stable can be. The government of China is only slightly less stable than the country it governs. It's hard to even dream of any scenarios in which the CCP disappears or even loses significant power in this or the next century. China is locked down tight, and it is stable. Unlike the Soviet, China is willing and able to take the best parts of capitalism, or any other socio-economic scheme, and use it to their advantage.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @04:43PM (2 children)
"Their" advantage. Who's advantage?
In 2019, nearly 6.6 percent of the Chinese population were members of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
(Score: 3, Touché) by Runaway1956 on Friday January 01 2021, @05:33PM
Very much like the US, the party's advantage comes first, then the people's advantage.
6.6% of the people are members of the party? Compare that to the US, where ~25% belong to one party, ~25% belong to another party, and ~10% belong to other parties.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 3, Touché) by RS3 on Friday January 01 2021, @06:02PM
6.6% having the guns and torture prison keys makes them the ruling party.
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 01 2021, @04:46PM (4 children)
His "activism" on behalf of this "activist" company with the tiny amount of holdings, is heavily invested in China. Activism doesn't have to mean "for something good." It can also mean activism to hurt America and prop up China. Which is what he is trying to do with this letter - by having news sources pick up his irrelevant little story and spreading negative news about Intel. And while competitors have a tiny sliver of datacenter space, Intel has that whole marketshare. In fact, they could have more if they chose to take more risk. For example, Xeons run on the 14nm fab, because it's longer proven, stable, and all the weird bugs worked out. Like what people want for production. Any performance comparisons against AMD or ARM CPUs, you'll notice they're comparing this older solid proven fab, to the latest bleeding edge CPU of theirs. That's cool for your desktop. It's not cool for a bank's financial calculations.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 01 2021, @04:54PM (3 children)
Jewtel is only squatting on super stable 14nm because their 10nm didn't work in 2015. The bleeding edge CPUs run financial calculations just fine. It's not cool to shill for Jewtel.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Friday January 01 2021, @05:29PM (2 children)
so because their CPUs 6 years ago couldn't go 10nm, they chose to stay on that fab till 6 years later in 2021, and are only going to switch to it for general sale this year, after 10nm has been proven to run consumer CPUs, and had all the issues with the process worked out.
I may be a shill for Intel, spending my days spreading propaganda on a tiny tech forum to increase their sales, because the CEO of Intel pays me cash in envelopes for that, but you're no shill for basic common sense.
Bleeding edge anything runs anything fine. 99.9% of the time. Until you hit an error you haven't hit before and end up missing a billion dollars or a little white dot in an x-ray. This is why you don't make decisions at big companies and your expertise lies in building gaming stations from parts you bought at amazon. Because you'd be willing to risk destroying a huge corporation to save a dollar - you have zero concept of risk and what reducing unknown risk is worth to a business. It's not worth the cost of purchasing a couple of extra CPU cores for a million dollar compute solution.
Let me put it in perspective for you. Storage - how much do you think a company spends, staff hours excluded, on hardware to give a server 1TB of usable storage? On average - it's about $10k. Per terabyte. For hundreds of petabytes of data. Do you know why they pay that much? Because if you get data corruption, if you get hacked and your data encrypted, if your entire datacenter gets blown up by a missle, that terabyte of storage is still there, with all the data, and there is zero anyone can do to change that. And if someone steals the storage that data is on, the data unrecoverable by them, yet still available to the production server.
They don't care about saving a hundred dollars on a CPU. They do care about reducing risk of downtime and data corruption.
You're a user living in a world. You enjoy the benefits of that world, but you have zero idea how it works, or why it works. Yet you're here telling that world they're wrong. I'm cool with that. I was once putting '89 in my car and a little kid ran up telling me should use the diesel handle to fill up. He was very sure of himself - it's what his dad has used for the truck for many years. The solid reasoning was, if I put in diesel, I wouldn't need spark plugs any more, and those need maintenance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 02 2021, @08:08PM (1 child)
That's a long post. Reminds me of the saying "stupid people say stupid things".
(Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday January 02 2021, @09:54PM
lol. about a quarter of a book page, should take a normal person about 20 seconds to read. I'm guessing books are long and hard to read too?
yes, stupid people do say stupid things.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday January 01 2021, @07:15PM
Intel can sell all of the chips they make at their own fabs, and that will continue. TSMC wafer costs are negligible compared to the prices of HPC GPUs and Xeons. It's about $10,000 for a "7nm" wafer. So Intel can sell more chips with no downside.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Friday January 01 2021, @06:05PM (1 child)
- Worrisome Threat To Our Technological Edge: the Chinese/Indians reached in and took the secret sauce
- Shortage Of Qualified Engineers: we brought in people from China/India on short-term visas, taught them the secret sauce recipe, and forced them to return home.
- US Companies Must Remain Competitive: we outsourced the secret sauce to China/India to boost our quarterly results.
Relationship status: Available for curbside pickup.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Friday January 01 2021, @06:55PM
The Market has spoken.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].