People who look at the Board and think they are clueless and have no strategy might consider that there is a strategy and they are executing it right now by bringing on a venture capitalist as CEO.
I'd agree that the Board has done miserably if the strategy was to create a world class product and foundry organization. In fact, it is not clear to me how they could do worse at that strategy than they have done so far.
But if the strategy was to milk x86 for whatever profits remain as the installed base is replaced by ARM, then the grade is still not awesome, but better.
If that strategy includes the gradual breakup of the company, then what is actually happening makes a lot more sense. Not sure the Board is executing that very well either, but at least what they have been doing makes more sense in that context.
Consider all the meetings they have had with potential suitors, which seems to have raised a key sticking point of valuation. So they bring in LBT, who has a long & successful track record of managing companies to extract the maximum value when taken public.
Reducing the product portfolio to the most profitable products could be seen as something to do whether breaking up the company or not, but see how they handle the product groups to be divested. Do they first try to maximize profitability and thus valuation?
Same goes for the fabs. If LBT and the Board start selling the non-EUV fabs in an effort to get IFS to profitability then do they start that process with headcount reductions and other efforts to increase valuation?
The company is never, ever going to publicly state what strategies they are pursuing, and often there are multiple strategic options being considered, so the effort can morph over time even if the same basic strategy is still in play.
Just watch the actions and see if they really are about trying to revive Intel, or merely to reduce cost (often at the expense of longer term growth).
@jq+1jsq7rfqc said it perfectly.