I think intel is buying into wireless, going in different directions
I actually think Intel is playing a dangerous game here, they could get so large that the government threaten to break the company up. M$ was lucky enough to escape this fate as that was previously on the cards.
If Intel arn't there own worst enemy and don't get too big for their own good, then using surplus cash now to buy into other markets is an extremely good idea and acts as insurance.
For example say Intel hit a wall in terms of process technology and now AMD is on a level playing field (process technologies increasingly taking longer to transition to new nodes), Intel's margins would be drastically squeezed trying to hold on to market share especially now Intel have to be on good behaviour, Intel's margins would be hit even more should Amd pull a rabbit out the hat again and have a CPU that outperforms Intel's.
So with Intel diversifying it's portfolio it would allow them to severely cut the prices of it's CPU's to maintain a cost advantage over AMD and remain more competitive as to not lose much market share. Intel as a whole will still be making money though hand over fist, through the rest of it's revenue stream that they previously invested ten's maybe by then even hundreds of billions in.
This strategy may also enable Intel to use more 'legal' ways of removing competition. It could for example pick a market sector ANY market sector one at a time, and sell their products barley above cost without all this kickback nonsense, this would make it very difficult for the competition in that area to compete forcing most of the competition to hit the wall while Intel then picks up their IP on the cheap.
Intel could then wait until there were two or three remaining competitors to avoid the attention of the FTC before raising prices to reasonable levels again, only now they have much more market share and better margins due to less competition, Intel could then do the same with another market sector.
