I Was Wrong About Intel

The Business Press Maven has a score to settle today.

To all those many readers who wrote to tell me I was speaking nonsense on the direction of Intel's(INTC Quote) earnings when I said the price war with Advanced Micro Devices(AMD Quote) would continue to take its toll, I have only one thing to say to you: Good call!

Intel reported third-quarter earnings yesterday, and, top line to bottom, they were excellent. They were excellent as stand-alones and compared with expectations, which -- in the age of the expectations, this is always key to mention -- were raised as recently as last month. Extra impressive.

Now, let me be clear that it's a touch easier to speak about why other people are wrong instead of why you are wrong. That's what separates us critics from those who actually produce something for a living. But in a superhuman effort, I'll give self-reflection a whirl.

Because my predictive writing about Intel was, for the most part, as off as anything I've produced. And since I preach the importance of the business media owning up to mistakes in the service of investors instead of blithely writing both sides of a story, I'll do the same.

Back in July, when Intel reported its second-quarter earnings, I was highly critical of the business media for focusing on the company's strong revenue instead of its disappointing profits. I also chided the business media for not being suspicious enough of Intel's claim that even though pricing pressure (euphemism for the war with AMD) was worse than they expected in the second quarter, margins would improve markedly in the third, by more than 500 basis points they said.

I even spit some bile at Kevin Sellers, Intel's director of investor relations, who wrote me a respectful note about what he felt to be a key issue that "no one picked up on"-- the reduction of inventory in the second quarter.