*JustMe* schreef op 6 september 2021 11:48:
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We Really Need to Talk about MobileyeBy Colin Barnden 02.10.2021 8
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We really need to talk about Mobileye.www.eetimes.com/we-really-need-to-tal...[...]
In finance there is a saying that “nobody rings a bell at the top of the market.” Perhaps, but Intel always times to perfection an acquisition right at the “peak of inflated expectations,” paying top dollar for the privilege. Right on cue, Intel announced plans to buy Mobileye in March 2017 for a cool $15.3 billion. Contained in the triumphant document called “E-mail to Intel Employees by Intel CEO Brian Krzanich on March 13”, Krzanich boasted: As you’ve heard me say, others predict the future. At Intel, we build it.
This is not the first time we’ve taken bold steps that have transformed our future, the industry and the impact of technology on the world. I believe that today’s announcement puts us in the driver’s seat to achieve our vision of creating the technology foundation on which the future of autonomous driving will be built. There it is. Mobileye was bought because Intel believed it was creating the technological foundation on which the future of autonomous driving would be built. So, who needed a strategy and roadmap for DMS? Mobileye’s end customers, otherwise known as the automakers, that’s who.
In automotive, if there is one rule of marketing I have learned over the years, it is the importance of listening to and understanding precisely the needs of the automakers. Because if you don’t, your competitors will. While Intel and Mobileye were busy telling everyone how clever they are and engaging in regular rounds of specsmanship with Nvidia about tera operations per second, Qualcomm quietly remained on terra firma and got on with the task of listening to the needs of the automakers. Qualcomm was busy listening, while Mobileye was busy lecturing.[...]
Will Intel sell Mobileye?Intel currently finds itself fighting battles on all fronts. With Nvidia and AMD (and Xilinx) in datacenter and compute. With TSMC and Samsung in manufacturing. It has lost Apple as a CPU customer. Pat Gelsinger starts as CEO on Monday (Feb. 15), Intel’s third in four years. Long gone is the euphoria of the 2017 Mobileye acquisition. Mobileye’s lead in ADAS is now under attack, particularly from Qualcomm and Xilinx. It has no coherent roadmap for driver monitoring leading into occupant monitoring and no offering whatsoever to compete with Qualcomm and Nvidia in digital cockpit and in-vehicle infotainment (IVI).
Mobileye offers only the promise of longer-term success in autonomous driving, where further down the road I expect it to crash into the achievements of the very quiet, very focused and very capable Ford- and VW-backed Argo AI. Argo doesn’t say much, so when it does, I pay close attention to its accomplishments.
Meanwhile Mobileye continues to make promises and drain resources from Intel, all for less than a billion dollars of revenue in 2020, equating to just a little over 1 percent of total revenues of nearly $78 billion. Am I the only person who thinks Intel has a Mobileye problem?Gelsinger has bigger issues to address than Mobileye, which is looking ever more like a
cash-intensive vanity project Intel can subsidize no longer. Gelsinger didn’t buy Mobileye and neither did the guy before him. That honor goes to the guy before the guy before him, Brian Krzanich. Mobileye suddenly looks vulnerable. With competitors circling to pick-off its ADAS business, no coherent DMS/OMS/CPD strategy and a need for further capital to realize its autonomous driving ambitions,
Mobileye being sold-off or spun-out might just turn out to be the wildcard event of 2021. But I have no idea how this turns out, because nobody owns the future. Right? Colin Barnden
Colin Barnden is principal analyst at Semicast Research and has over 25 years of experience as an industry analyst. He is considered a world expert on market trends for automotive vision-based driver monitoring systems (DMS). He holds a B.Eng. (Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering from Aston University in England and has covered the automotive electronics market since 1999.