Intel Cancels IDF

Intel Cancels IDF in San-Francisco

Greatest Developers’ Forum Gone

The Intel Developers Forum held by the hardware giant for 20 years since 1997 is gone. On April 17, 2017 Intel announced: “Intel has evolved its event portfolio and decided to retire the IDF program moving forward. Thank you for nearly 20 great years with the Intel Developer Forum! Intel has a number of resources available on intel.com, including a Resource and Design Center with documentation, software, and tools for designers, engineers, and developers. As always, our customers, partners, and developers should reach out to their Intel representative with questions.”

Thus, the San-Francisco event that was to take place this August is canceled with a barely comprehensible explanation from the leading chip maker. Money doesn’t play any part to this, since the company stocks quote has risen up to $35.60 and Intel leads Dow advancers.

For years, Intel hosted the events twice a year – in spring and in fall – to bring the best developers together and to showcase the latest goals: CPUs, smart TVs, tablets. In 2012, for instance, the baby new Haswell processor was showcased while last year, 2016, the public was introduced to VR headset, Project Alloy. In 2007, the event took place in China for the first time to highlight and honor the role the country played in the world’s computer industry. IDF locations were shared across USA and Asia megalopolises’, Taipei and Singapore.

This year, though, China was expelled from the list of possible locations and Intel still remained uncertain about the event specific date and format, which has now been followed by this devastating news. The reason given by Intel to www.anandtech.com, is that Intel is shifting towards the data industry and away from the PCs, whatever that means. The company’s strategy has been overhauled during the last two or three years and the changes aren’t unexpected within Intel itself. They said the communication with developers wouldn’t be cancelled, but reformatted to meet the modern challenges. It will be more like AI Day or Manufacturing Day, while connected to partner events, or will most likely involve separate events. With the arrival of the Internet of things, artificial intellect and post-manufacture field programming, Intel feels it will rather set several events, each with the focus on specific issues. The old format: addressing to all and everyone at the same time, has outlived its effectiveness.

We in iGotOffer are inclined to see the news as the beginning of a new era: The post-PC era. Hardly everyone can explain what it will be like, but Intel with many years of experience of trending, just pointed their finger at it. Yes, the land of tomorrow will belong not to computer systems, but to data. Like the television is not the sum of all the TV sets, but something bigger. We have to face the fact that the virtual reality is taking off the PCs and portables, and embraces all the world: cars, machinery, medicinal devices and house appliances.

On the other hand, Intel could have been more specific about the reason of cancelling. It’s just the matter of politeness, after all.