Do you remember over two years ago when I first showed this predictive graph? It was seen as wild speculation back then and was hoo hawed at considerably by the then "Intel friendly" PC press people.
Let's see if it has held up to reality at all over the last 3 years .....
First discrepancy is that the graph
totally underestimated the effect of Chromebooks by a factor of about 6x.
Second discrepancy is the MS support of ARM is coming a year sooner than predicted. This does not mean Intel will disappear, which was inferred by the verbiage below the original graph earlier on.
There never was an Intel line drawn on the chart for Intel rolling over to Android or ARM because that was never ever seen as even a remote possibility two years ago. I think we can all see that it is a reality today.
Apple jumping ship to ARM has already happened on everything but the high end Mac name brand products, and when that happens it will likely be a partial affair at first with lower end laptops going first for a year or so before the desktop products go. So this line is past already or is about now, take your pick.
No one ever foresaw the Apple Desktop unit line as simply stopping, which may actually be what happens in the end.
Intel has done literally
anything and everything to hold on so far (including 8 billions blown on contra revenue spending) and I expect that
anything and everything will continue as they are now trying to 'name brand' ARM processors from people like Spreadtrum, Rockchip and Mediatek as their own products.
Nastier newer tactics (like bribing Rockchip and Mediatek to NOT launch products that would clean Intel's clock --- or else to let Intel name brand the new products from the get go as 'Intel Inside') are also likely to continue as well.
Anything and everything to hold on means exactly that and Intel is certainly proven capable of lying to stockholders and hiding their adverse financials by restructuring during a year's end roll up, etc. etc.
But functionally, the current state of
domestic Intel production of competitive products against ARM is very shaky at best and the placement of the line on the graph could be argued to have already taken place at the Spreadtrum/Rockchip SoPHIA point in time (which has already taken place. BTW).
Or now, since Intel has just OFFICIALLY restructured their entire line to actually include a few competitor built products as name branded Intel products ......
Or we could wait until Broadwell fails, which will be soon enough as Intel itself will have better products out by year's end. Or we can stall until Skylake and Cannonlake have their turns before calling the shot.
It doesn't matter since PC itself suddenly seems to be dying out in whole sections of the globe now and THAT CHANGE may will be what sunsets Intel the quickest.
My gut is that the conflict line has just kept shifting, from mobile, then to tablet, then to Chromespace, soon to laptop and
each new shift is a new continuance of the Intel struggle. At the laptop conflict level or stage Intel won't have enough cash cows left to milk, so the contra revenue will have to stop and the speed or rate of fail will go up accordingly.
In fact, Intel will eventually become just a name brand loosely attached to a legacy foundry function that they will eventually have to sell shares in before it is all over. Intel will never actually die, they will simply become an HP, reselling other people's products.
Or somebody else will buy the Intel brand name so they can go abuse it some in new and creative ways.
Or until the Chinese government steps in and simply stops some of the silly arsed Intel games as "actions in restraint of trade" ...... which could end Intel overnight as more and more of "Intel" comes from TSMC, Rockchip and Spreadtrum (actually based off of ARM standard designs and Mali and/or VR Graphics IP).
Always remember, both Intel and MS are considered "provisional, on good behavior" right now with the Chinese Government. Their presence in China could end instantly upon a single serious infraction (serious in the eyes of China that is).
Pages: 
