Intel – First, Fire the Marketing Guy

I reviewed the slides presented by Paul Otellini at the Intel (INTC) 2006 Annual Meeting.

The most interesting one puts the recent market share decline in perspective. What surprised me was the big leap back in ’95, when the Pentium branding pulled the rug out from under AMD (AMD) and Cyrix who had ‘cloned’ the i486 nomenclature. That was a masterful marketing move, second only to the best one in semiconductor history, Intel Inside.

What the graph doesn’t really reflect the solid share loss in server Microprocessor market share. AMD has thoroughly thumped Intel in this area. The other slides in the presentation talk about Woodcrest (new Server chipset) and how Intel plans to ramp to near 100% production by the end of the year. I’m interested in folk’s opinions on Woodcrest.

According to the WSJ, the shareholder meeting was a downright hostile environment.

From an unnamed shareholder at the meeting:

“I suggest that someone ought to be fired in Intel… My question is who?”

Intel needs the Pentium marketing mojo again. Check out this slide.

Does anyone have a clue what the hell all of these brands mean?