Intel chief executive officer Craig Barrett has called
on the company to change its methods and improve the way it brings
products to market after a year of missteps, processor delays and
design problems.
According to an internal memo posted to Intel's corporate
intranet, Barrett said, "There are many reasons for these (product
delays and manufacturing issues). In the end, the reasons don't
matter because the result is less-satisfied customers and a
less-successful Intel.
"This is not the Intel we all know and that is not acceptable,"
he wrote.
The memo was dated five days after news reports surfaced about a
delay in the release of the company's latest Centrino mobile
chipset, code-named Sonoma, which was pushed back because of a
design problem.
This has not been a good year for Intel. The company has
experienced problems moving to a new 90 nanometer process
technology, causing a delay in the release of its Dothan and
Prescott microprocessors.
In June, the company recalled some of its 915 G/P and 925X
chipsets because of a flaw in the I/O controller that prevented
some computers from starting normally.
This came a month after the company scrapped plans to build two
future processors - the next generation Pentium 4, called Tejas,
and a future Xeon successor called Jayhawk - in favour of new
designs.
"Barrett is very acutely aware of some of the executions that
we've been having recently," said Tom Beermann, an Intel spokesman.
"What he was trying to do with this open letter to employees was to
indicate that he is very personally focused on it, and that it is
taking up a great deal of his own personal attention."
The memo was issued weeks after a senior management meeting in
which Barrett brought up his concerns with Intel's recent track
record, Beermann said.
"He spoke very openly and directly to them about how important
these issues are to them and to let them know, in no uncertain
terms, that our recent record was unacceptable," Beermann said.
Still, Barrett's memo hit some positive notes, citing a record
revenue outlook for the company's next quarter and improved company
profits. "By many measures, Intel is performing well," Barrett
wrote.
However, the fact that Intel has improved its financial results
"just makes our recent problems all the more disappointing because
of what we could achieve if Intel were performing well," Barrett's
memo states.
The call for improvements was probably not sparked by single
problem, said Kevin Krewell, editor in chief of the Microprocessor
Report. "It just slowly creeps up on you, and all of a sudden your
realise that there was a whole lot of stuff in the last year that
was just wrong in terms of execution," he said.
"It does happen periodically. Every once in while Intel gets a
little too comfortable in its role. It gets lax in certain areas,"
he said, who noted that five years ago, the company had problems
meeting demand for its Pentium III processors, a problem that was
compounded by its ill-fated decision to support Rambus's RDRam
(Rambus Dynamic Ram) memory chips.
Barrett seems to share a similar view, according to the
memo.
"Intel has been in tough spots and we have always gotten through
them because everybody focused intensely on the challenge - and we
have always emerged a stronger company as a result," he wrote.
Robert McMillan writes for IDG News Service