Intel CEO Paul Otellini to Retire in May

By Wolfgang Gruener
published

Intel said that Paul Otellini will retire from his role as CEO in May 2013.

Otellini, 62, was promoted from his position of executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group to CEO in 2005.

Intel broke with a tradition of betting on engineers as CEOs for the chipmaker as Otellini holds a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of San Francisco and an MBA from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Most notably, the two predecessors of Otellini, Craig Barrett (1998-2005) and Andy Grove (1987-1998), Intel's third employee, were engineers at heart.

Intel did not say who will replace Otellini. "The board of directors will conduct the process to choose Otellini’s successor and will consider internal and external candidates for the job," a statement read. earlier this year, Sean Maloney, the rumored candidate for the CEO, announced his retirement because of health reasons.

Another candidate, Pat Gelsinger, who led Intel's processor designs through their greatest growth period in the 1990s, is now CEO at VMware, but is still believed to be very interested in becoming CEO of Intel. Additional candidates include executive vice president of the Intel Architecture Group, David Perlmutter, as well as executive vice president for Intel Capital, Arvind Sodhani.

We would also expect Otellini to continue a tradition at Intel and phase out his career at the company by remaining on Intel's board of directors for some time.

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Wolfgang Gruener
8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • NightLight
    intel is doing good work lately. hope it stays that way
    Reply
  • ojas
    welcome to monday, tom's.

    Anyway, i think Otellini was CTO/COO, and the tradition at intel is to promote COOs to the CEO postion, not engineers.

    Also, the article doesn't mention at least three other candidates:

    Intel’s board will “consider internal and external candidates” for the role of CEO, it has said today. Meanwhile, there has been some shuffling in the executive team, with software business chief Renee James, COO and head of worldwide manufacturing Brian Krzanich, and CFO and director of corporate strategy Stacy Smith all promoted to executive vice president.

    All three are eligible for the CEO's role, and are actually the main candidates according to most people's speculation.
    Reply
  • ipwn3r456
    Atleast release the Haswell CPU's before you retire...
    Reply
  • rds1220
    He did a good job while he was at Intel. Hopefully who ever replaces him will keep things going.
    Reply
  • Kami3k
    As much as I think Intel screwed AMD over back in the Athlon 64 days, I have to give Paul Otellini credit.

    Intel has been doing a great job since.
    Reply
  • No retire before your stocks and stock options go south! When the mobile market becomes bigger than the x86 market Intel is going to be like GM after the OIL crises and the Japanise small car market grab! Intel is well geared to sell the big V8 muscle car type CPUs but ARM and is partners are coming on like a Corolla, small 4 cylinder, but gets the job done! Most households have one or two PC, so they do not have a need to purchase any more, until the ones they have need to be replaced! The PC makers in the future will not have the resources or the money to afford paying for Intel's high margin CPUs! Intel won the x86 battle, but the CPU war has changed to the lower power mobile front, and that market is in no way inside Intels handbasket! Rumors are starting that even in the PC market that ARM products will begin to make inroads for the Low cost Low power CPU that will power future products that used to be x86 only! Intel will still lead in advanced technology, but research and development cost money and without the sales volumes and high margin it had in the past, it is going to be increasingly difficult for Intel to pay to maintain the chip Fabs, and reasearch while also paying its stockholders like they have been accustomed to in the good old days!
    Reply
  • Search should start & end with Sanjay Jha...perfect candidate to lead Intel into the mobility age. Former CEO of Motorola, former COO Qualcomm.
    Reply
  • CaedenV
    ipwn3r456Atleast release the Haswell CPU's before you retire...Haswell will be released about the same time as his retirement. I find it interesting however that he is retiring just as his origional agressive tick tock plan begins winding down (which ends with Broadwell).
    It could be that he wrote that origional map because he was planning to retire by that point. But it could also well be that he sees an end up ahead for traditional computing, and he wants to get out now while things are still going rather well, rather than 2-3 years from now when Intel is still selling lower power chips instead of faster chips, and people continue to upgrade out of replacement of systems, rather than upgrading existing systems, and when ARM starts eating into the traditional x86 chip space... It really does seem to look like a good time to get out while the getting is good.

    For his replacement, I really hope intel focuses on 2 major fronts:
    1) Make Atom what it was supposed to be, as an ARM killer. Give it a real in-house GPU, make it cheap, and make it take over the tablet and phone space. There is a huge market out there, and the latest Atom chips are great on the CPU side, and even have some well priced units... but sorely lacking on GPU performance which is a deal killer for many industries. And Atom chips are tiny. Put it on a modern die process already! The yealds will go through the roof because it is a much simpler chip design compared to the regular offerings, which would put them right in line on the power target, and just a little more expensive than ARM, but adding support for more software/developers/tools which will bring more powerful applications to phones and tablets.

    2) Focus again on the enthusiest market. We do not expect a 20% increase in performance every year... but the 5-10% increase in performance we are expecting from here on out is also rather disapointing. I do not mind the cooler more efficient chips that have been coming out... just do not focus on that at the detrement of performance. I understand that the CPU had to lose some weight in the wattage area, but now that we have done that, give me a reason to upgrade in 2-3 years instead of the almost 6 years it took to justify last time.
    Reply