Intel Retires its IDF Developer Conference

Intel Retires its IDF Developer Conference

In a somewhat unexpected move, Intel today “retired” its Intel Developer Forum (IDF) conference. The microprocessor giant has typically launched major new product releases at the event, which was held annually in San Francisco.

“Intel has evolved its event portfolio and decided to retire the IDF program moving forward,” a statement on the Intel website explains. “Thank you for nearly 20 great years with the Intel Developer Forum! Intel has a number of resources available on intel.com, including a Resource and Design Center with documentation, software, and tools for designers, engineers, and developers. As always, our customers, partners, and developers should reach out to their Intel representative with questions.”

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Intel was known to be rethinking how it handled IDF—it had previously canceled a China-based version of the show and said it was “making changes” to the US event, which would “have a new format.” But the firm apparently decided that that “new format” would be virtual.

Regardless, the move comes at an odd time for Intel, which is seeing increased competition from mobile platforms like ARM and chipset designers such as Qualcomm.

I’m now curious to see whether Microsoft, which has suffered from the same competitive issues as Intel, will scale back its own developer efforts. But so far, that has not been the case. Indeed, Microsoft recently brought its WinHEC trade shows back from the dead and now holds those events in China, near hardware manufacturers.

A report in Anandtech suggests, however, that Intel is simply reacting to changing market conditions in a way that makes sense for that company. “Intel has been changing rapidly over the last two-to-three years, especially as they are changing from a PC-centric company to a data-centric company,” the report notes. “As a result, the decision has been made to find new ways to communicate with the audience (media, developers, and companies) and the ecosystem with targeted events.”

Perhaps Intel could have communicated that information to everyone itself. This company seems lost lately.

 

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Conversation 8 comments

  • ibmthink

    18 April, 2017 - 8:49 am

    <p>So we can expect even less information on new processors and the architecture-specifics? Sigh. It seems like Intel has lost its way, ever since the PC market started to shrink, they don´t know what to do next. Even their performance-advantage over AMD which they had build up all those years is gone now.</p>

    • wright_is

      Premium Member
      18 April, 2017 - 9:39 am

      <blockquote><a href="#98572"><em>In reply to ibmthink:</em></a></blockquote><p>Why less Information? The Information at the Events is often superficial, compared to what can be found in technical documents…</p>

      • ibmthink

        18 April, 2017 - 11:36 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#98595">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>Intel has had this tendency over the last couple of years to release less and less detailed information to the press about new launches. The IDF was the place where they often announced new CPUs or formally released them to the market. Now that this event is gone, Intels press-work might become even more erratic…</p>

  • Waethorn

    18 April, 2017 - 10:19 am

    <p>Intel has long cited that they hire more software engineers than for hardware.</p>

  • Hifihedgehog

    18 April, 2017 - 1:05 pm

    <p>Old news from a day ago. They retired it yesterday, not today. You're a day late and a dollar short.</p>

    • Waethorn

      18 April, 2017 - 1:48 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#98679">In reply to Hifihedgehog:</a></em></blockquote><p>*rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr</p>

  • illuminated

    18 April, 2017 - 2:04 pm

    <p>Intel tried to change the format of the conference. Too bad it was format c:</p>

  • Bill R

    19 April, 2017 - 4:10 pm

    <p>IDF was also used promote new technologies and update standards too. PCI, USB, SATA, Thunderbolt, Ethernet, SSDs, and much of the PC ecosystem got introduced or periodic updates that pushed the industry as a whole forward (or pushed technology adoption a bit faster). If a technology that was discussed at IDF got good press Intel would promote the buzz with OEMs and ODMs to see if they would get it in their products to find out if the market would respond positively. </p><p>No IDF or equivalent will slow progress even further. </p>

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