No More NUC: Intel’s Weirdly Named Mini PCs Seem to be Going Away
upstart writes:
Intel has exited several side businesses as it tries to stop losing money:
Since 2012, Intel has designed and sold its own lineup of mini PCs. The Next Unit of Computing series (NUC-rhymes with yuck) always most closely resembled Mac mini-like desktops, but over the years, it grew to encompass compact workstations and gaming systems as well as mini servers with multiple Ethernet ports.
But Intel is apparently throwing in the towel on the NUC, according to a statement given to The Verge earlier today.
[...] The NUC was an effort to bring the speed, size, and low power usage of an ultrabook into the desktop realm, replacing boxy, ugly office desktops with something you could hold in the palm of your hand. NUC-style mini PCs didn't take over the desktop market in the same way that ultrabooks came to dominate the laptop market, but the NUC is still survived by a large ecosystem of similarly tiny PCs, many of which are ultimately cheaper and easier to buy than most NUCs were. Models include but are not limited to Dell's Optiplex Micro, Lenovo's ThinkCentre Tiny, HP's ProDesk and EliteDesk Mini systems, Gigabyte's Brix systems, a number of models from PC motherboard-makers like Asus and ASRock, and Apple's Mac mini and Mac Studio.
The end of the NUC is due at least in part to Intel's recent financial struggles-the company has had a few rough quarters since the end of the pandemic-era PC boom, losing billions of dollars as its consumer, workstation, and server businesses all falter. The company has already instituted layoffs and cut executive pay in response, and it announced plans to sell its pre-built server business in April.
Although Intel is still investing in a few product lines that aren't processors-the company has said it's still committed to its nascent GPU business-CEO Pat Gelsinger is betting the company's future on his "IDM 2.0" strategy, in which Intel offers its chip manufacturing facilities to third-party chip designers. This will put Intel in competition with the likes of Taiwan Semiconductor (TSMC), Samsung, and GlobalFoundries.
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