I started this blog to examine the following aspects:

• In the mercurial, whimsical world of technology, where a charger standard changes every two years, how can a 1978 processor standard (Intel x86) hold sway even in 2020?
• What is the secret of Intel’s moat? What protects Intel’s enduring treasure?
• Then, did a tiny hobbit appear one fine day to steal away the treasure from the Smaug? Did Intel lose its competitive edge to other players in the eco-system?
• Could you pinpoint that momentous change to the whim of a specific moment?
• Is there a ‘singularity point’ that will stand as an enduring symbol of change?
• Who are the new leaders? What will happen to the other players in the eco-system?
• When will the regime change again?
• What has the Rosetta Stone have to do with all this?

To know all that, if you have the patience, you have to endure 14 more blogs. Here we are on the 15th. This is the summary of all the blogs.

Blog #1: The treasure is inside the fort:

Here we check out how Intel, like Smaug was protecting a great source of power.

Blog #2: First the fort, then the treasure:

This is about Intel’s source of competitive advantage.

Blog #3: The fort which won over other forts:

How did the IBM PC architecture win over all the other architectures including Apple Macs? Did Bill Gates bail out Steve jobs?

Blog #4: The creation devouring the creator:

Intel built on adjacencies and became the server processor vendor of choice. In the process, IBM, Intel’s creator (in a manner of speaking) was sidelined as a mainstream server vendor.

Blog #5: A law predicated by volume:

Moore’s law was more a business goal to be achieved rather than a physical law. In the first decade of the 2000s, Intel was the leading microprocessor vendor and easily won the server adjacency.

Blog #6: Favourable winds or distant storms:

Intel was rocking. It just won a difficult new customer. The new customer, Apple, asked for another product from Intel. Paul Otellini went against his gut and said no.

Blog #7: ARM Holdings: The disruptor of the disruptor

It took ARM a decade to ship their first 1B units. In the next decade they shipped 40B units. In the last 2 years, they shipped 60B units. Computing at the edge looked very different with ARM and disrupted Intel’s pre-eminence.

Blog #8: ARM twisting into adjacencies:

Just like Intel benefitted by the PC growth, ARM benefited from the volumes driven by Apple and Android phones. Their designs became stronger. They started looking at the lucrative data centre market.

Blog #9: TSMC: Second wall breached:

Like any well guarded treasure, Intel was protected by multiple layers of moat. Manufacturing was one of their competitive advantages. Driven by Apple’s volume and smartphone growth, TSMC became the volume driver in semi-conductor manufacturing. They are at least one generation ahead of Intel now.

Blog #10: The desolation of the Smaug:

In the second decade of this century, Intel was losing its competitive advantage due to concerted action by a triad of forces – Apple, TSMC and ARM. The launch of M1 processor was the singularity moment that represented the ‘Desolation of the Smaug’.

Blog #11: An industry’s Laschamp Excursion:

In ways we don’t realise, the entire eco-system is aligned with Intel IA-64 on the PC and the data centre. It is the predominant core. What happens when the core of an eco-system changes polarity?

Blog #12: Strategic questions Intel will have to confront:

We are now in the future. We get speculative. We ask questions about Intel’s strategic options across different dimensions.

Blog #13: Other players, other layers:

A change in the core of an eco-system will affect all the other layers. What are the other layers that are impacted? Who are the players? What are the questions they face? We examine all layers and all players. Beware, by now we are well in the speculative zone.

Blog #14: From a snowflake to an avalanche:

IBM was the standard. It got disrupted. Intel was the standard. It is in the process of getting disrupted. If ARM becomes a de facto standard for the edge device, will it also not face a similar fate?

What are the forces in the distant future that will disrupt ARM? We discuss about this in an exercise of distilled, unabashed, unbridled, uninformed, joyful speculation.

Blog #15: Written on Rosetta Stone : Summary:

We again examine the objectives of the blog and summarise. It is this blog.

Thank you. I look forward to your feedback.

“This is one of the innovator’s dilemmas: Blindly following the maxim that good managers should keep close to their customers can sometimes be a fatal mistake. Sound managerial decisions are at the very root of their (the incumbent) impending fall from industry leadership.”

Clayton M. Christensen, The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail