Intel CEO Paul Otellini to retire early
willingness to look for outside candidates, analysts said. Previous CEO transitions have all involved carefully groomed internal candidates. But if Intel's board is now looking externally -- to bring in new skills -- that would explain the lack of a named successor and length of time in transition, said Longbow Research analyst JoAnne Feeney.
Intel's board may have trouble finding an outsider with the strategic vision to lead it into the mobile market as well as the chops to run the cutting-edge factories that give the chipmaker a technological lead over its competitors.
Since most other chipmakers have closed down their fabrication plants over the past two decades and outsourced production overseas, few executives have experience planning and running plants that now cost upwards of $10 billion each to build. Armed with a bachelor's degree in economics and an MBA from the University of California, Otellini began at Intel in 1974, when most of the company's sales came from memory chips and before it turned to PC processors. He managed several business units before being appointed chief operating officer in 2002.
TROUBLED WATERS
With economic growth slowing in China and struggling in Europe and the United States, global PC shipments are expected to decline slightly this year, the first annual drop since 2001.
The top chipmaker is currently running its factories at less than 50 percent of capacity, redirecting unused space and equipment to be used for more cutting-edge production lines still being built.
The Santa Clara, California-based company
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