From InfoWorld: The PC market has been in trouble for ages, but last year took the biscuit. Shipments dropped below 300 million for the first time since 2008, and IDC declared it the worst year in history. That explains a lot about what happened at Intel this week.
The chip maker has been reducing its dependency on PCs for some time, preferring to focus on its more successful data center business. But the announcement that it would lay off 12,000 people is a sign that Intel is finally turning a corner.
"Intel appears to have decided that it can’t wait any longer for a hoped-for revitalization of traditional PC markets," as Pund-IT analyst Charles King put it.
Intel will still make PC chips for growth areas like 2-in-1s and gaming. But the cutbacks will allow it to increase investments in forward-looking technologies like silicon photonics, FPGAs, its 3D Xpoint memory, and the Internet of things.
Put another way: Intel missed the boat on smartphones, but there's always the cloud.
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