Intel CEO compares AMD's success to a "comet passing in the night"

Hillsboro (OR) - During a recent forum discussion with employees at Intel’s Jones Farm production facility in Hillsboro Oregon, chief executive officer Paul Otellini said that AMD’s recent success in the microprocessor arena was short-lived, but the company hasn’t ruled out its competitor yet.

The success of the Core micro-architecture has injected a new sense of pride and confidence virtually across all layers of Intel’s organization. CEO Paul Otellini currently enjoys much more pleasant questions from his staff than just a year ago - when AMD was still gaining market shares from Intel, virtually unchallenged.

During an event held this week, Otellini said that he today sees AMD’s success "like a comet passing in the night." While he also mentioned that Intel has to keep an eye on AMD’s "very real" competitive threat, he described Intel’s progress with the 2008 Nehalem architecture as "spectacular" - and he reiterated his believe that Intel has an 18 to 24 month lead over its rival. AMD representatives recently told TG Daily strongly disagrees with Otellini’s perception and said that the company will only be half a year behind Intel, when the 45 nm processor generation debuts.

Addressing concerns about growth challenges in mature markets and smaller profit margins in emerging markets, the executive explained Intel’s strategy to move into the Mobile Internet Devices (MID) segment - a new product category that apparently has evolved from the ailing UMPC concept and will bring connected devices that are slightly larger than smartphones, but smaller than today’s UMPCs. Developing the Silverthorne processor as the foundation for MIDs, Otellini called this market a "huge growth opportunity" for Intel and said that such products will help the company to grow faster than the usual 6% to 8% range of firm’s processor business.

Clearly, Intel is flying high these days. Gone is the time in which Otellini had to justify Intel’s disadvantage over AMD and market share gains and design : When Dell announced last year that it would use AMD processors in its product lineup he wrote in an email to employees that he was "very disappointed" about Dell’s decision : "This is a clear wake up call for us to improve our competitiveness in the MP server segment. It says we cannot take anything for granted. We have to continue to earn our success each and every day. Much will be written about this event. Inside Intel we need to keep a clear focus on delivering the new family of products this year and next that will allow us to win back share in all market segments and at all of our current and future customers."