[throwawa66]

I noticed this recurring theme. Seems like that eventually all companies go down this path at some point if they become mega rich. At that point money alone doesn't matter as much as capturing new markets do so lots of money goes down the drain. It's a good thing for the companies that get acquired and get their paycheck.

I see as rich people who buy expensive things and let them rot because they forgot they bought them or so.

[eric-hu]

Sometimes bets like these turn out to be huge wins, like Microsoft going into the gaming platform space with the Xbox or Amazon building out cloud services. The Intel app store idea doesn't seem like such an idea to me, but I can see how the board could have been pushing for "outside the box" big bets.

[backupcavalry]

I'd argue that Microsoft and Amazon's branches were at least tangential to what they were doing in the back-end and that they already have most of the required talents to do it right.

I have no idea how Intel could work their way into running an app store beyond "we have tech and market dudes, good enough right?"

[sitkack]

With their new fabric/modular system, the modules are effectively "apps". Though possibly sold by app developers, you could install the Adobe module or the Autodesk module and it would have hardware/ram/storage tuned to those applications. It will start with DL and Graphics accelerators but then morph into application specific.

[eecc]

No no no, sorry but it’s a completely different story. Microsoft is a Software company and with the XBox they sought to expand from their business software market into the entertainment software.

It’s still software and besides the hardware which wasn’t much different from a standardized gaming PC, they worked on building the software platform and developer accessories. Something they happen to be pretty decent at...

[mikepurvis]

Probably an intentional attempt to self-disrupt, innovator's dilemma and all.

[_jal]

Public markets demand growth. So boards demand managers who do Growthy Things. When it doesn't grow, you toss the old managers lots of money for their service, find new managers who promise you new Growthy Things, and repeat.