To: Windsock who wrote (140135 ) 7/26/2001 8:31:37 AM From: Road Walker Respond to Windsock,This is the purpose of the acquisitions, not the purpose of immediate earnings next quarter. You may not like that approach but you can't use short term results to measure a long term strategy. should be investing in new product categories, and buying technology when it is more efficient than developing it in house.strategy has been to buy ~15 (and growing) small companies and to combine their wide ranging abilities and technologies into several very different product strategies. Then to apply Intel's manufacturing competence to drive down cost and dominate the particular categories. Intel has never , to my knowledge, demonstrated an ability to integrate acquisitions into the Intel culture. And in this case they have to somehow meld them together, and then integrate the result into one of the Intel divisions. Mr. Grove has admitted in interviews that they have had problems. scale of their acquisitions has been huge, not in dollars but in the number of companies, from all over the world, and in very different businesses. The experts at buying and integrating companies, like CSCO, GE and TYCO, don't try to integrate 15 companies at the same time. Mr. Barrett stepped in as CEO, and used a shotgun approach, throw money (in the form of acquisitions) at the wall, and see what sticks. Instead of analyzing, and then executing on a few acquisitions in key areas. Not a frugal use of shareholder profits. How does anyone manage all these different companies, with different cultures, in different locations into a coherent and efficient product strategy? It would be extremely difficult for a company with that competency, and Intel has never demonstrated that competency. execution the number speak for themselves. This snowball is rolling downhill and gaining mass:
