After seven months of searching, Intel finally has a CEO. The job goes to Robert Swan, the former CFO and during the search for interim CEO, who previously indicated that he was not interested in the position.
Robert Swan, Bob to the Friends, is the new official full-time CEO of chipgian Intel. Intel had no CEO since Brian Krzanich was forced to step aside seven months ago. He had a relationship with an Intel employee, and that went against the company’s policy. Swan was appointed as Interim-CEO during the search for a full-time replacement.
While Swan indicated that it was not interested in the CEO title on a permanent basis, this search did not yield any results. The vacancy started to become a farce, especially in view of the difficult parquet that Intel is currently in. The chip giant, once incontournable, is unable to meet the demand for cpus in the PC market today and has been slowing down the production of its 10 nm chips for two years now. This created an ideal climate for AMD to make its comeback.
Urgency
After a somewhat disappointing quarterly financial report last week in which Intel still did not have a new CEO, Swan is now responding to the board’s request to take over the position. Officially, the board is impressed by Swan’s achievements during his interim period, while the new CEO claims to have gained a new understanding of the position during the same period. The fact that there was a certain urgency is not said out loud by anyone. With the appointment, the search for a new full-time CFO has started.
Swan joined Intel in 2016 and had previously built a career at eBay. The man has no technical background, which is quite unique for Intel. Swan is the seventh CEO of the company, and only the second who did not grow out of the engineering pool.
Restoring confidence
The CEO now has the challenging mission to get the Intel ship back on track. The past year was not detrimental to the books, but it was detrimental to the perception. Microsoft recently literally stated that it holds Intel and its chip shortage responsible for the poor performance of its hardware department. The fact that Intel is unable to deliver on its promises and is therefore hampering the growth of its partners is something that should not happen two years in a row. Especially since AMD today offers very similar and cheaper alternatives to build pcs around.
With Swan’s appointment, the CEO sappa is at least over, and Intel can focus on what matters: getting production on arrow and rolling out 10 nm in volume while the node is still relevant.
Related: Intel seeks to strengthen data center position with acquisition Mellanox
This news article was automatically translated from Dutch to give Techzine.eu a head start. All news articles after September 1, 2019 are written in native English and NOT translated. All our background stories are written in native English as well. For more information read our launch article.
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