Intel (INTC) CEO Takes Over Mobile Group

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 22, 6:53AM EDT

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In a brief filing by Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC) to the Securities and Exchange Commission meant primarily to highlight the compensation package of new CEO Brian M. Krzanich, there was some small print about another new role for Krzanich:

Effective May 20, 2013, in connection with a number of organizational changes, David Perlmutter, General Manager, Intel Architecture Group, will lead a management transition effort under which the businesses and engineering groups that currently are within Intel Architecture Group, including Datacenter and Connected Solutions Group and PC Client Group, will report directly to Mr. Krzanich.

Perlmutter’s responsibilities include overseeing chips for “handhelds, embedded devices, and consumer electronics.” Those are the areas where Intel has been an absolute failure, as the decline of the PC world has made many of the company’s business plans obsolete.

The lack of a program to compete effectively with companies like Qualcomm Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM) in the mobile industry may have cost retiring CEO Paul S. Otellini his job. Many investors were surprised that Krzanich got the top position, as he was an insider who was in senior management during the period when Intel failed to move into new markets. It is both a fair observation and criticism.

And Intel has magnified the distress about the transition at the top of the company. Krzanich has been put in charge of a flailing company, as well as the division that is at the heart of the distress.

The Intel board was plenty upbeat when it announced is new CEO:

“After a thorough and deliberate selection process, the board of directors is delighted that Krzanich will lead Intel as we define and invent the next generation of technology that will shape the future of computing,” said Andy Bryant, chairman of Intel.

The board failed to mention that the company was in enough trouble that Krzanich would not be on the job for more than a week before he was sent to fix Intel’s largest problem all on his own.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.