With Intel continuing to flounder, and given all of the issues with their CPU products over the past handful of years - one has to wonder if Intel ever was actually good at designing and manufacturing CPU's.

Think back to the Pentium 4 and Athlon days... think about all the anti-competitive, illegal and/or unsavory business practices Intel employed during that era to gain dominance. They literally shut out AMD via illegal behavior - and received a slap on the wrist many years later. Their illegal behavior led to AMD being forced (via unfairly reduced revenue by way of anti-competitive Intel practices) to spin off Global Foundries, and forced to employ only second-tier engineers, managers, executives, etc.

Where would we be if Intel and AMD had actually competed freely during that era. It seems likely Intel would not have been the darling of so many PC enthusiasts, and would not be dominant in business computing either.

Here we are today, with Intel seemingly unable to find their way out of a paper bag...