[Chiba-City]

Our legacy "computer industry" was a lend/lease styled business model industry. Our legacy "computer companies" were financing companies. Not "computing" companies. That lends/lease financing business model justified the sales forces operating on commissions. All that is over now.

Everything has changed now. Computer automation (CPU, RAM, Storage, I/O) is now priced in the mere 100's of dollars. That signifies "stuff" you can buy at Best Buy or even 7/11. Stuff you can "buy" signifies "stuff" that cannot be sold on commission. There is no more role for financing (lend/lease). There are no roles for sales forces operating on commissions.

I love bits and bytes. So what? Follow the money.

[polalavik]

What? We are talking about a major IC designer/manufacturer not gateway desktop computers from 1999.

Theres still tons of money to be made in chips - the whole world runs on them. but the cost is in the multi-multi-billion dollar r&d to build a fab that actually makes functional chips. And then having the work force that can produce successful yield after successful yield 24/7 that keeps the economics of the whole thing on par with Taiwan and other major supply chain countries in the indo-pacific where wages are lower.