Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) unveiled its new C2000 server and other major connectivity products this week, and analysts at Raymond James say those products are a sign of the urgency the company feels to defend its supremacy in the server processor market. They see the products as a modest net positive for Intel.
Intel faces off with ARM
Analysts Hans Mosesmann and Brian Peterson issued a report to investors explaining their view of Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s new technology products. Of course the Atom-based Avoton C2000 server was the big “star of the show” on Wednesday. They said it is a “true system-on-chip or SoC processor” with 13 different SKUs and “over 50 design wins in low-compute server workloads such as microservers, cold storage and entry networking.”
They note that at the unveiling this week, Intel was trying to explain that the microserver category is small, although the opportunity to make an impact in markets that are adjacent to it is big. However, they said management was having trouble doing this. The Raymond James analysts provided their own translation of what management said. They believe Intel continues to be worried about the threat from ARM holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARMH) (LON:ARM) and so they’re willing to cannibalize the company’s current low-end and extremely profitable XEONs to hold off the competitor.
Will Intel beat back ARM?
They analysts said that with the C2000 server, Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC) is hoping to “snuff-out incremental ARM design activity” with the new server. The company has also set forth a solid road map into its next server products, including the low end Atom-based 14 nm Denverton, the mid-range Xeon-based 14 nm Broadwell Soc and the high-end Xeon-based 14 NM Broadwell.
The analysts believe that Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)’s new products show an urgency that the company needs in order to slow down ARM holdings plc (NASDAQ:ARMH) (LON:ARM) and the headway it has been making into Intel’s Xeon servers.
