Intel needed to replace the engineering talent it had lost, improve its balance sheet and better attune manufacturing processes to meet the needs of potential customers, Tan said. Speaking at his first public appearance as CEO, at the Intel Vision conference Monday in Las Vegas, Tan did not specify what parts of Intel he believed were no longer central to its future.
“We have a lot of hard work ahead,” Tan said, addressing the company’s customers in the audience. “There are areas where we’ve fallen short of your expectations.”
The veteran semiconductor executive is trying to restore the fortunes of a company that dominated an industry for decades, but now finds itself chasing rivals in most of the areas that define success in the field. A key question confronting its leadership is whether a turnaround is best served by the company remaining whole or splitting up its key product and manufacturing operations.
Tan gave no indication that he would seek to divest either part of Intel. Instead, he highlighted the problems he needed to fix to get both units performing more successfully. Intel’s chips for data centre and artificial intelligence (AI)-related work in particular were not good enough, he said.
“We fell behind on innovation,” the CEO said. “We have been too slow to adapt and meet your needs.”
