Steve,
re: "What are your thoughts on management's decisions during the past year at Intel?"
It's difficult to rate Intel's management decisions, especially with a short one year time frame, most of those won't play out for another year or more.
The decisions that I would question were made long before a year ago. Their confidence that Rambus would ramp in quantity and performance may have been a bad decision, but it's hard to tell unless you have only the facts that they had in front of them at the time. It's VERY easy to second guess in retrospect.
From a shareholders perspective, the worst decision they have made recently was about three years ago, when they should have started building fabs for late 1999 and beyond demand. The microprocessor shortage over the last year has been at least partially responsable for AMD's success, Intel made a weak competitor much stronger, and lost sales. Again, I don't know the facts that faced at the time, so it's very easy to second guess.
The biggest question mark is their decision to invest $Billions into new businesses. They bought 10 companies this year, so far. That one won't be answered for at least another couple of years. But it's a heck of a lot more important than the Rambus decision, from a long term shareholder perspective.
All in all, I would say that Intel is one of the best managed (and respected) companies in the country. And I think the polls bear me out on that, so if you disagree, you are in the minority. But that doesn't mean you are wrong, time will tell.
John |
