Another Intel Product Reaches End of Life
This is NOT a rumor. As reported by STH, Intel is now exiting the PC business (as in, complete PC systems – not processors) as they have “started to notify its ecosystem saying that it will stop direct investment in the Next Unit of Compute (NUC) business”. Intel already exited its prebuilt server business earlier this year.
Here is the Intel statement provided to STH:
“In line with Intel’s continued efforts to prioritize investments in its IDM 2.0 strategy, we have made the difficult decision to exit our Data Center Solutions Group (DSG). As part of this plan, MiTAC, an edge-to-cloud IT solutions provider and longstanding ODM partner of DSG, will have the right to manufacture and sell products based on our designs. We are focused on ensuring the DSG team and its stakeholders are supported during this transition.”
Users will still have their choice of Intel-powered mini-PC systems from other manufacturers, with myriad options available from brands both familiar and otherwise, but we won’t have to argue over the pronunciation of Intel’s Next Unit of Computing acronym anymore. Nuck? Nook? Knock? It never really mattered, but NUC is just a part of computer history now.
HardwareLUXX (German language) has verified this news, and provided this statement from Intel:
“We have decided to stop direct investment in the Next Unit of Compute (NUC) Business and pivot our strategy to enable our ecosystem partners to continue NUC innovation and growth. This decision will not impact the remainder of Intel’s Client Computing Group (CCG) or Network and Edge Computing (NEX) businesses. Furthermore, we are working with our partners and customers to ensure a smooth transition and fulfillment of all our current commitments – including ongoing support for NUC products currently in market.”
NUCs were a neat idea, they kickstarted a market but were just too damn expensive. I hope Intel aren’t thinking of dumping Arc next.
They had a small chance of making this work as a sort of upgradable high-end compact workstation that the DIY market followed and the low-end base NUCs could have just road that (potential) success. Problem was their upgrade approach was both clumsy (laptop components and cooling) and convoluted (hard to work with) to say the least. Intel also priced these at level beyond all common sense which certainly didn’t help either.