Hu Yiting thought that Intel would have to weigh it for a long time, and it would not be able to respond until the market was beaten by Cyrix, but he didn't expect that the hero was the hero, and Intel quickly realized what was most beneficial to them, and quickly made a strategic choice.

This was due to the first board meeting at the beginning of 1996, when Intel, under the chairmanship of Moore and Grove, held a board meeting to summarize the 1995 fiscal year and look forward to the 1996 year, at which the company gave a report on the work of the previous year and presented the company's work blueprint for 1996.

At the beginning of the meeting, the atmosphere was no different than in previous years, but when the finance department announced on the projector that fourth-quarter profits were not as good as expected, Grove's displeasure was clearly felt by everyone.

"This is a red flag! The market has alerted us!"

After the regular report of the finance department, Grove set the tone for the current situation in one sentence.

Grove looked around and added, "From the feedback from the sales department, we've heard a lot of complaints from customers. ”

Chairman Gordon Moore then spoke, analyzing the data with a blank face: "Last year's sales revenue totaled $13 billion, and the total after-tax profit was $3.56 billion, which seems to meet or even exceed our expectations of 12 billion sales and 3 billion profits estimated at the full board meeting in early 95.

But if you look closely at the sales data, you will find that our sales in the first quarter were 2.8 billion, in the second quarter was 3.2 billion, and in the third quarter it soared to 5 billion, but in the fourth quarter, it plummeted to only 2.3 billion US dollars, which was even lower than the first quarter. ”

Andy Grove nodded heavily, and then suddenly said loudly: "We have grown rapidly over the years, and since we set up 4 production centers around the world in '94 to produce Pentium processors, our number of employees has skyrocketed, and now it has exceeded 43,000.

Most of our employees have joined Intel in the past ten years, and the company's business has been booming over the years, and everyone is used to working hard and taking one step at a time to achieve good harvests.

However, the changes in front of us tell us how rapidly the IC industry is changing! If we are not careful, the expected success may come to naught! We must be vigilant!

Of course, this setback is not an unpredictable event, and we don't need to be restless or even panicked.

As we all know, the surge in sales in the third quarter is due to the effect of the new semester and the effect that commercial enterprises are accustomed to updating equipment in the second half of the fiscal year, but the reason for the decline in sales in the fourth quarter is, in the final analysis, due to the improvement of the overall level of the industry, resulting in the Pentium processor is no longer the strongest star product in the PC processor as it was six months ago! Cyrix's 6x86-DRAGON has surpassed us in comprehensive computing performance!

Being ousted from the number one position in the industry is not only a serious setback, but it also shows that something is wrong with our senses and perceptions! From now on, we must put ourselves in the right position, and no one should think of themselves as the number one leader in the industry! We must put ourselves in the position of a chaser! Turn our position upside down! Let our senses and perceptions be sharpened again!"

Andy Grove's speech was deafening, and the loud voice reverberated in the silent conference room at Intel, filling everyone's ear drums.

Gordon Moore nodded slowly: "Andy is right, from now on, Intel is going to enter a tense state, which is destined to be a year of battle in 96, and even 97, 98, and 99, from now on, every employee of Intel, including the directors, must muster 100% courage and passion, and make all efforts until we regain the first place in product performance!"

The directors were generally very satisfied with Grove and Moore's speeches, as annual profits and sales had already met the expectations of the board meeting at the beginning of '95.

But one of the directors asked, "Actually, I'm very comfortable with Intel's consistent management style and never ask management questions, but I wonder how we lost the number one position in performance? After all, we have firmly established the leading position in technology since the 286 era, how can we be robbed of the first place by a small company like Cyrix overnight?"

Grove looked at the director with a watery face, with a secret hatred in his heart, and said in his heart: "You vultures, I usually don't see you contributing, and the dividends don't fall every time, but now the company suddenly encounters a setback, but you want to stand up and question me?"

Yu Youcheng saw Grove's face turned blue, and quickly explained: "In my opinion, the problem is not actually our own business strategy and management methods, and Cyrix is not a large consortium with strong capital, they are just lucky to find a technology partner that can complement their advantages, and it is precisely Cyrix that clearly aims its guns at our PC platform processor manufacturers, which has brought us harm." ”

At the other end of the trestle-like conference table, a director said, "I know the Chinese company, they came up with a multimedia coprocessor, and this thing helped Cyrix soar." But the question is, where is our own multimedia coprocessor?"

Yu Youcheng said gloomily: "As a cutting-edge technology with top technical secrets, as early as November 93, we officially established a project to develop a multi-energy processor in the Intel Haifa Research Institute in Israel.

We originally envisioned a 36 to 40-month development cycle to design a set of high-performance multimedia instruction sets, and for each instruction to design the complete IC structure required for on-chip loading, as a complete set of IP core patents, integrated into our processor products.

However, according to the original R&D plan, the IP core patent will not be delivered until November 96 at the earliest. ”

The director sighed regretfully: "It's a pity that it's too slow, I have no prejudice against Israel, but why don't you put such an important R&D at the Santa Clara headquarters?

Yu Youcheng bowed his head and was silent.

Zhou Shanglin, manager of Intel's DRAM Business Unit, said: "No one could have imagined that the multi-energy Pentium would be such an important technology, and the Haifa Research Center is a model project for our international talent utilization, where the best mathematicians and engineers in Israel are gathered, and the company is at the forefront of multimedia algorithm research and implementation. ”

Zhou Shanglin is a Singaporean Chinese, and Yu Youcheng both have Chinese identities and DRAM business departments, so he feels that it will be more objective for him to come forward and speak, and he must stand up to defend his colleagues of the same ethnicity.

Hauss, general manager of the processor division, also said: "It is true that no one expected that the multi-energy pentium would be such an important product, and there has never been a similar product on the market before, so we can't predict the real demand of the market."

In addition, we have been working on the next generation of Pentium processors, and the development of next-generation high-performance processors using new, faster and more powerful architectures is in full swing, and the development of multimedia instruction sets as a complement to the Pentium architecture is of course on the back burner. Is there anything to question about that?"

House joined the company in 73 years, and his seniority is very old, and he still speaks very authoritatively, and the directors also nodded their heads when they heard this, expressing their agreement with his explanation.

A director asked: "When will the next generation of Pentium's processors be on the market? What is the current internal naming of the company? What is the performance? I hope Intel can launch a new processor as soon as possible, this is the best counterattack!"

Parker, the director of quality control, immediately shook his head when he heard this: "This is impossible in the short term, at present, the Pentium products are still in the stage of continuous performance improvement, there are still many technical problems that need to be solved in production, and the next generation of processors means new architectures and exponentially increasing the number of transistors, which is two years later." ”

Yu Youcheng said: "Now we have launched a Pentium processor integrated with L2 cache as a coping strategy, but the yield is not high, but the good news is that we are developing Slot1 interface technology is close to completion, about the second half of this year will come out, so that it can solve the problem of L2 cache and CPU working together, and the technical troubles of low yield caused by the increase in production difficulty after integration will disappear, which is a perfect technical solution." ”

One director asked, "So, you still haven't been able to make a substantial breakthrough in floating-point arithmetic speed!" L2 caching is useful, but your problem is not this, it's the lack of multimedia instruction sets!"

The processor industry is highly competitive and technology is changing rapidly, and I'm afraid the market has been stolen by Cyrix's versatile processors before your next-generation architecture processors hit the market!

Can't Intel hurry up and come up with its own multimedia instruction set? Will it work this year?

If you can't, your stock price will undoubtedly plummet! If the scene of '86 were to repeat itself, it would be a disaster for our shareholders!

That year you lost $360 million, laid off 35% of your workforce, closed six memory factories, and the stock price plummeted from $20 to $12, and if it weren't for the timely launch of 386 and its rapid capture of the market, you probably wouldn't be the Intel you are today!"

I would like to state up front that if Intel can't come up with a multi-energy surge this year, my investment company and I will consider quitting the board and selling off the stock!"

As soon as these words came out, the conference room suddenly boiled up, and everyone shook their heads like molecules, exchanged heads and ears, and talked about it!2210