Question:
C-V-1: "Intel Centrino in 2007: A New "Platform" Strategy for Growth" discusses an extremely important strategic and organizational change for Intel by the creation of Centrino. The development of Centrino was part of Intel's right hand turn toward different performance measures. It required the company to alter its strategy away from optimizing only on clock speed as the performance method for discrete processors, toward interrelated features that sought to balance features including reduced power consumption and wireless communications. This strategic shift, together with the introduction of new multi-core architectures, fundamentally changed the company's definition of success for the future.
Regarding the "Intel Centrino in 2007: A New "Platform" Strategy for Growth", case study, answer the following questions:
1. What was the role of IDC as a geographically peripheral center of competence at Intel?
2. What were the external and internal forces that gave rise to the Banias process project in Israel?
3. Describe the roles of the different levels of Intel's management in determining the "strategic context" for Banias and Centrino. In particular, discuss the roles of operational managers, e.g., Eden, Guchman, senior managers, e.g., Chandrasekher, MacDonald, Maloney, Perlmutter, and top executives, e.g., Barrett and Otellini, in shaping the development of Centrino.
4. How did Banias change Intel's core microprocessor road map?
5. What are the implications to Intel of pursuing a "platform strategy"? What major changes will the company have to make, if any, to be successful with a platform strategy?