英特尔CEO明年退休

    芯片制造商英特尔(Intel)的CEO保罗·欧德宁领导该公司连番实现了创纪录的销售收入——该公司上一财年的销售收入高达540亿美元。他还推动了“超级本”趋势，目的在于重新点燃市场对PC（个人电脑）的热情，同时倡导3D三栅极晶体管（3-D Tri-gate transistor）这类突破性的创新技术。然而，他在移动领域获得的业绩记录很成问题。

    英特尔在周一上午发布的一份声明中表示，这位即将离任的CEO将在明年5月份退休。此举令人颇感意外，因为欧德宁今年才62岁，离该公司强制性退休年龄65岁还差几年的时间。公司发言人坚称是欧德宁本人决定离职的，并且表示董事会“很遗憾”地接受了他的辞职请求。

    欧德宁在一份声明中称：“我有幸领导了世界上最卓越的一家公司。我在英特尔任职已将近四十年了，而且担任公司CEO也有八年的时间了。现在该是我离职的时候了，该把英特尔的领导权转交给新一代领导层。我期待与安迪·布莱恩特（英特尔公司董事长）、董事会以及管理层团队在接下来为期六个月的过渡期内一起工作，并且在我作为公司CEO退休之后，可以担任公司管理层的一名顾问。”

    即便其离职的氛围是和睦友善的，但欧德宁是在英特尔处境艰难时期准备离开公司的。虽然这家世界上最大的芯片制造商目前仍然统治着PC行业，但它在智能手机及平板电脑市场上一直步履蹒跚，而且在服务器领域可能很快将会面临来自对手基于ARM芯片的竞争。欧德宁非常清楚英特尔未来面临的诸多挑战。

    欧德宁在去年1月份接受《财富》杂志（Fortune）采访时曾表示：“这么多年来，我们一直非常有信心而且放心的业务是英特尔芯片加上微软软件，而且我们知道我们必须要做的事情。我们按照某个技术规格制造我们的芯片，而微软则负责开发软件。我们这两家公司可谓是强强联手。瞧，每年100家厂商推出各种新款PC，这一切似乎都像是珠联璧合。但在手机领域，情况就完全不同了。”

    即使英特尔与微软的关系发生了变化——开发Windows 8操作系统的微软正在推出自行研制的两款Surface平板电脑，而其中只有一款采用了英特尔的芯片，另一款则采用其竞争对手的ARM芯片。与此同时，最受市场欢迎的苹果（Apple）iPad平板电脑也没有使用英特尔的芯片。

    Intel CEO Paul Otellini led the chipmaker to record sales -- a whopping $54 billion in its last fiscal year. He also drove the "ultrabooks" movement in an effort to reignite demand for PCs and spearheaded breakthrough innovations like 3-D Tri-gate transistors. His track record on mobile, though, is questionable.

    The outgoing CEO will retire in May of next year, Intel (INTC) said in a release issued Monday morning. The move came as a surprise because Otellini is 62, still a few years away from the company's mandatory retirement age of 65. A company spokesperson insisted that it was Otellini's decision to leave, saying the board accepted his resignation "with regret."

    "I've been privileged to lead one of the world's greatest companies," Otellini said in a statement. "After almost four decades with the company and eight years as CEO, it's time to move on and transfer Intel's helm to a new generation of leadership. I look forward to working with Andy [Bryant, chairman of Intel's board], the board and the management team during the six-month transition period, and to being available as an advisor to management after retiring as CEO."

    Even if the departure is amicable, Otellini is leaving Intel at a rough period of transition. While the world's largest chipmaker still rules the PC industry, it has stumbled in the smartphone and tablet markets and could soon face competition in the server space from rival ARM-based chips. Otellini is well aware of the challenges ahead for Intel.

    "Our comfort zone for so many years was Intel chips and Microsoft software and we knew what we had to do," Otellini said in an interview with Fortune last January. "We built our chips to a certain specification and Microsoft did their software and we worked together and, voila, new PCs would come out from 100 vendors a year and everything would just kind of work together. It's different in the phone space."

    Even Intel's relationship with Microsoft (MSFT) has changed -- the Windows 8 maker is launching two versions of its Surface tablet, and only one of them is powered by Intel; the other by rival ARM chips. Meanwhile, the most popular tablet, Apple's (AAPL) iPad, doesn't use an Intel chip.