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Don't forget that Google is one of the founding members of openpower: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nextplatform.com/2016/04/06...

They are looking at power PC as an alternative to Xeon.

That may actually be a reason for preferential release to Google.

In general, I think we are in interesting times. Still a guess but I think the crowd close to their forties (I'll be 40 in 4 years) will see a significant shift within a decade.

My kids are an age where they don't really care what is in their game console, TV box or their parents' phones.

I guess I (as a working adult) would really stop caring about what is powering the cloud as long as I keep getting access to the service level I (or my employer) is paying for.

With Google trying non-Intel option, there may be a copy-cat effect for other cloud providers to do the same to remain competitive, possibly diminishing Intel's importance in the server market.

And with "kids" mostly using non-Intel(or x86 in general) platforms (phones, TVs, snapchat-shades, phones etc) where Intel already has very little presence.

Not trying to sound a doomsday prophecy for Intel but... times they are a changing ?

2011-x chips contain custom and undisclosed additions for these biggest customers ("Big seven") already. These are in all 2011-x SKUs made from the same chip, but are said to be disabled through fusing, just like other feature fuses.

I hope someone leaks more info about that, or reverse-engineers something, because I find the whole secretive attitude around processors and other hardware information incredibly offputting as it is; but it's not just Intel who are doing it.

Maybe when used hardware with these customisations starts showing up on eBay or similar...

I hadn't heard this. What might these features might be? Do you have a link to more information?

I don't get the impression google nor facebook really want to be the sole CPU producer. Strategically, market regulators could site that as a reason to never again let google or facebook purchase another company. If you're google and facebook you highly value the ability to buy competitors out while they're small. That threat should also exist for Apple, theoretically. Of the three, I could imagine Apple having the business model closest to making a purchase/merger of/with Intel. But it sounds like there are both technological and business reasons for Apple not wanting to become that big.

Which credible threat is allowing Google et al to assert pricing pressure?

Google is active with ARM and (Open)POWER. ARM remains a threat to the lower end, POWER challenges fat Xeons. Potentially AMD, depending on how their current development efforts are going.

Buying Intel is easier, so Intel gets to guess how far they can go before one of their large customers decides that the risk of going with one of those alternatives is worth it (demonstrating to the world that Intel isn't the only viable option in the process, which might at the end be the bigger damage for Intel)

Given the market caps of Google, Facebook, Apple et-al it makes me wonder why nobody has bought out Intel.

Or for 1/10 the cost, they could buy AMD. Not because their products are equivalent, but because any new owner of AMD also acquires a very special relationship Intel. Intel and AMD have cross-licensed a lot of IP, without which neither would be able to sell an x64 processor. And (as I understand it) if AMD changes ownership, their licensing deal with Intel is nullified and would need to be renegotiated:

However, according to Drew Prairie, director of corporate communications at AMD, once ownership of either AMD or Intel changes, the whole agreement is terminated for both parties. As a result, after a transaction happens, the companies need to negotiate a new cross-licensing agreement.

“Actually, the agreement is pretty clear – if there is a change of control for either company the agreement is terminated,” said Mr. Prairie. “That does not mean a new agreement could not be reached, but in a change of control the agreement is terminated.”

http://www.kitguru.net/components/cpu/anton-shilov/amd-clari....

The assumption is that obviously the deal would be renegotiated, since it would be "Mutually Assured Destruction" for both AMD and Intel if either side refused. But what if AMD is bought by a company with deep enough pockets to just absorb the loss? What if AMD was owned by someone who didn't actually need it, and could countenance the MAD?

I'd think that such a company would have tremendous leverage against Intel in such a negotiation. If they demanded it, and were willing to "throw the steering wheel out of the window and play chicken"[1] (ie, structure the acquisition such that both Intel and AMD were prevented from selling x64 processors unless Intel agrees to their terms), exclusive early access (and whatever other special preference they want) would be easily negotiated.

But if this were true, I'd have thought that someone would have already done it. If not Amazon/Google/Facebook (the three largest Internet companies), why not Tencent/Alibaba/Baidu (the next largest)[2]? All of them could easily afford it, and I'd think that all of them could get tremendous benefit from a sweetheart deal with Intel. What am I missing?

[1] https://bpicampus.com/2011/02/28/evening-focus-applied-game-...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_Internet_compa...

I think you meant Amazon instead of Apple?

Oops, yes. I looked at the linked page, mentally abbreviated the top 3 as "AGF", and then expanded it wrong while typing. It might be way for Apple to maintain their hardware premium in the x64 market, though. Or to wipe it out at the same time they move to something else.

Given the market caps of Google, Facebook, Apple et-al it makes me wonder why nobody has bought out Intel.

They'd over time lose the ecosystem advantages that an independent Intel offers. They'd probably also lose a lot of money since an in-house Intel would become much less competitive. Apple also doesn't need or want what Intel has to offer (highest performance but very much not the lowest cost to manufacture chips), unless my impression of Mac vs. iOS systems sales is way off.

It's hard to imagine Intel being in such dire straights they can let Google and Facebook blackmail them in such a market damaging way, although as noted by t0mas88 other big customers like AWS might be getting their own custom numbered parts. Or, who knows, might not need exactly these types of chips (I have no idea, not familiar with the market beyond what I buy, low/near lowest cost single chip Xeons for my personal workstation class computers).

But pissing off everyone else who buys these class chips, unless contrary to the article they do have a capacity issue, seems breathtakingly unwise, an inflection point indeed.

I think that Google's TPUs (Tensor Processing Unit) use Altera FPGAs (speculation based on [1]). I'm sure there's some degree of collaboration if Google is filling cabinets with high-end FPGAs.

[1] https://twitter.com/danluu/status/705802676945072129

Uh? They prototyped on FPGA but what is currently deployed across their data centers is custom made ASIC silicon.