I don't think you read the article. Go read it first before you make your hypothesis. If it was as easy to fix as using a environment variable (which no longer works) then it was done intentionally.
I don't think the fact that it can be enabled/disabled by environmental variable indicates malicious intent. It could be as simple as that Intel doesn't care to test there compiler optimizations on competitors' CPU's. If have to distribute two types of binaries (one which were optimized but could break, vs un-optimized and unlikely to break), I would default over to distributing the un-optimized version. Slow is better than broken.
I understand some end users may not be able to re-compile the application for there machines, but I wouldn't say its Intel's fault, but rather the distributors of that particular application. For example, if AMD users want Solidworks to run faster on their system, they should ask Dassault Systemes for AMD-optimized binaries, not the upstream compiler developers!
Anyways, for those compiling their own code, why would anyone expect an Intel compiler to produce equally optimized code for an AMD cpu? Just use gcc/clang or whatever AMD recommends.
> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article.