Free Republic

Intel Chief Executive Paul Otellini is expected to announce a massive layoff as soon as Tuesday that could eliminate as many as 10,000 jobs, CNET News.com has learned. The Santa Clara, Calif.-based chipmaker, having suffered several financially disappointing quarters, launched an internal analysis in April to find ways to increase its efficiency. Otellini is scheduled to announce the results of the analysis, including the layoff, on Tuesday after the stock market closes, sources familiar with the plans said. Intel has about 100,000 employees worldwide, so the cut could be as high as 10 percent of the company's staff. The job...

Globalization is real, but its power to improve the lot of humankind has been madly oversold. Globalization enthralls and binds together a new aristocracy--the golden crust on the human loaf--but the remaining billions, who lack the culture and confidence to benefit from "one world," have begun to erect barricades against the internationalization of their affairs. And, from Peshawar to Paris, those manning the barricades increasingly turn violent over perceived threats to their accustomed patterns of life. If globalization represents a liberal worldview, renewed localism is a manifestation of reactionary fears, resurgent faiths, and the iron grip of tradition. Except in...

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said Tuesday that the spy agency avoids racial profiling because it is "fundamentally stupid'' and does not knowingly use information gleaned under torture offshore because the practice is "morally repugnant.'' James Judd told a gathering of Canadian judges on Tuesday that he is "acutely aware'' of complaints that the agency, along with several other organizations, targets the Muslim community in fighting the war on terror. "We don't profile because it's fundamentally stupid and we don't have enough resources,'' said Judd. "From a national security perspective, we can't afford...

Hezbollah Iran Missiles Slam Hadera Israel - Nuclear War Approaching? By Joel Leyden Israel News Agency Tel Aviv----August 5......The only good thing about the terror group Hezbollah (Hizbollah) or Islam Party of God is that they keep their promises. Just two days ago Hezbollah terror leader Hassan Nasrallah said from Lebanon that he would strike Tel Aviv, Israel with missiles if the Israel Defense Forces attacked parts of central Beirut. A few hours ago, Hezbollah launched three Iran missiles at the Israel city of Hadera. Hadera is 70 miles south from the Lebanese border and 30 miles north from Tel...

IBM servers use chips by AMD Sunnyvale company gets boost in battle with rival Intel Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer August 2, 2006 ------------------------------------- IBM Corp. unveiled a line of business computers using Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron microprocessor on Tuesday, giving another boost to the chipmaker in its rivalry with Intel Corp. Tom Bradicich , chief technology officer of IBM's systems and technology group, said the Armonk, N.Y., company has embarked on a major expansion of its relationship with AMD by introducing Opteron-based servers. The roll-out of five computer systems and blade computers follows the announcement in May by...

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--Intel officially closed the books on the Pentium era on Thursday with the Core 2 Duo, its most important product launch in 13 years. "This is not just an incremental change, this is a revolutionary leap," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at a launch event here, held in a heavily air-conditioned tent. The last time the company held such an event at its headquarters was when it introduced the Pentium processor in 1993, a similarly important milestone in its history. Back then, the PC market was a fraction of its current size, Otellini said. Pentium quickly became one...

If you’re not living underneath a rock you probably know about the escalating war in Israel and Lebanon. I am very sympathetic to the innocent people who are affected by this war. I prefer not to turn this into a war discussion, I am just talking about the potential effects that it has on our industry. Over the years Israel has been on the cutting edge of research and development in various advanced technologies. Israel boasts many thousands of high technology companies in a wide range of fields such as telecommunications, software, semiconductors, biotech, and medical electronics. Many of the...

The bad news never seems to end for Intel. Soft financials, management cutbacks, and a shake-up of senior executives are just the latest developments amid sliding sales and market share. The world's largest maker of microprocessors wants to change the conversation from the mistakes of the past to the promise of the future. Step one: an overhaul of its processor lines. Intel last week introduced five new versions of its high-end Itanium 2 chips. This week, it formally introduces its mass-market Core 2 Duo platforms for desktops and notebooks. The company will introduce quad-core versions of its processors for servers...

Two weeks from now, Intel will release its all-new Core 2 Duo processor. The technical details were made available to the public in March 2006, and first benchmarks made clear that Intel is not joking: Core 2 Duo shall become the undisputed leader in performance and performance per Watt. It's time to separate facts from rumors. Intel does not talk about changes to the processor architecture; it talks about a complete redesign. The engineers took elements from the current Pentium D NetBurst architecture and added ingredients that made the Pentium M and Core Duo mobile processors successful, and voilá: The...

SAN FRANCISCO — Troubled Intel Corp. plans to fire 1,000 managers as part of an effort to cut $1 billion in costs, a company spokesperson said Thursday (July 13). Spokesperson Chuck Mulloy confirmed that the company had informed employees Thursday morning that 1,000 managers would be let go as the first action of the company's previously disclosed restructuring initiative. The affected managers are from across all Intel business divisions in all geographies, Mulloy said. Mulloy said the company is not disclosing the anticipated cost savings of the manager layoff at this time. Intel will provide an update on its restructuring...

Intel aims to reclaim market dominance with new chip Jun 26 4:37 PM US/Eastern US computer chip maker Intel began shipping a speedy, power-efficient processor it claimed would turn the tables on arch-rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). "We're back to a position we are used to having, undeniable leadership in the area of performance," Intel Vice President Tom Kilroy told a briefing of analysts and the press in San Francisco. "It's an exciting day. Our end customers were waiting for this." Kilroy touted its freshly released Xeon 5100 series chips as the "fastest dual-processor ramp" in Intel's history. The chips,...

Chicago (IL) - If AMD has its way, then Intel's performance-per-watt leadership claim may be short lived: The first quad-core Opterons, due in 2007 will consume the same power as today's dual-core processors, while AMD expects Intel to increase the power envelope when adding more cores. Intel will be dominating the headlines in tech publications early next week with the debut of a new architecture ("Core") that is believed to not only increase the firm's competitiveness with AMD's processors but also bring a visible advantage in performance and power consumption. And while we are patiently waiting for Intel's designated savior...

EETimes has reported that an Intel price war has been planned. Armed with a bandoleer full of Dual Core Smithfield and Presler based chips for ammunition. The company has taken another road to challenge their rival, AMD.“We expect another profit warning from Intel, guiding Q2 sales to $7.9 billion versus a consensus of $8.4 billion,” Diesen said in a note to clients. “After Intel stuffed the channels with chips in February and March, the floor fell out in April, and [PC processor] sales dropped 52 percent year-on-year,” he added.Also stating;"Intel has obviously given up on making any money on their...

Is Intel about to rid itself of 16,000 workers - just over 16 per cent of its global workforce - later this month? So suggest whispers doing the rounds among Silicon Valley's technology community at the moment. That's what blogger Omid Rahmat claims (http://omid.tomshardware.com/2006/05/intels_amd_mome.html?www.reghardware.co.uk) at least. It's certainly no secret that Intel is examining every part of its business for signs of under-performance - CEO Paul Otellini said as much in April this year. "In terms of non-performing businesses, anything with a bracket will be looked at," he said. "It would be too simplistic to simply do a reduction in...

Chip-level attacks target a vulnerability in the processor rather than the software Researchers have claimed that "chip-level threats" pose a potential problem for Intel-powered Mac systems. A chip-level attack targets a feature or vulnerability in the processor rather than attacking software as is the case with nearly all today's security threats. Examples of chip-level attacks are rare. The last known serious outbreak dates back to 1998, when the CIH/Chernobyl virus embedded itself into the flash-BIOS of infected systems. Security vendor McAfee said in a recent white paper about security challenges for Apple systems that chip-level threats are a potential problem...

Exclusive Did Apple make a mistake by switching to Intel? We may never know, but Apple had more options than has been previously reported, The Register can exclusively reveal. A chip start-up that created a high performance, low power processor compatible with existing Mac software had been working closely with the computer company for many months. Rackspace, The Managed Hosting Specialist - its all we do! - Click here to find out more Apple was looking for a new chip supplier largely because it was struggling to find a decent part for its key laptop line. IBM could not deliver...

SAN JOSE, Calif. — In a major shift in strategy, Dell Computer Corp. on Thursday (May 18) said that it would roll out new servers, based on microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The disclosure, revealed in Dell’s first-quarter results, indicated that the PC giant would introduce new servers based on AMD’s Opteron line of 64-bit processors by year’s end. The news represents a boost for AMD (Sunnyvale, Calif.), but it is also a major blow for Intel Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.). Since its inception, Dell has primarily used x86-based microprocessors from one vendor: Intel. Dell will continue to use...

Dell Inc. said Thursday it will begin using chips from Advanced Micro Devices rather than its rival Intel Corp., as the computer maker posted a first quarter drop in net income. Round Rock, Texas-based Dell had an exclusive agreement with Santa Clara-based Intel, but said in its second-quarter earnings press release that it will switch to Sunnyvale-based Advanced Micro Devices chips in some of its products by the end of the year. Dell, which had lowered its forecast last week, posted net income of $762 million, or 33 cents a share, compared with $934 million, or 37 cents a...

Top chip analysts expect Intel to cleave off its flash memory and communications businesses in the coming months as the company tries to cut costs and compete better against AMD. Despite these moves, however, Intel will never regain the astonishing market dominance it once enjoyed. Intel CEO Paul Otellini warned last month (http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/04/28/intel_preps_restructure/) that he will create a "leaner, more agile and more efficient" company by looking for underperforming business units to restructure. A group of top chip pundits believe the units in question will be Intel's flash memory group and its teams working on chips made for wireless and...

[May 14, 2006] M15 INFILTRATED BY AL-QAEDA (Sunday Mirror Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TERRORISTS from al-Qaeda have infiltrated Britain's security services, the Sunday Mirror can reveal. Bosses at M15 believe they unwittingly recruited the Muslim extremists after the July 7 suicide bombings in London last year which killed 52 people. They were signed up as part of a drive to find more Muslims and Arabic speakers to work as spies to help prevent future attacks by Osama bin Laden fantatics. Spymasters found some of the agents in Britain's universities and colleges and persuaded them to pass on information about suspected...