Competition from Asian companies was undoubtedly too strong, and margins too low.
Launched by Intel in 2013, the concept of the NUC - an acronym for Next Unit of Compute - was nothing new at the time. In fact, Intel has adopted a concept from Asia, where companies such as Shuttle have designed PCs that are "just like the big boys", but more compact. The idea is to take all the components of a standard-format PC, but integrate them into a much smaller case. Little by little, however, the concept has evolved to include components designed to be ever more compact: power supplies have changed format, sometimes even becoming external, motherboards have been slimmed down, memory sticks have regularly used the SO-DIMM format of notebooks...
For Intel, the NUC concept was above all a way of being present from one end of the chain to the other. Thus, the brand's NUCs were stamped Intel and systematically integrated one of the firm's processors. In many cases, the SSD was also an Intel model. The fact remains, however, that the competition was undoubtedly too tough, with numerous American players such as Dell and HP moving into this market segment on the one hand, and Asian manufacturers making considerable efforts to offer configurations at the lowest price on the other. Competing in its own market with American firms more accustomed to handling customers with complete configurations, and abroad with Chinese or Taiwanese firms able to offer far more attractive prices, Intel had little room for manoeuvre.
The ServeTheHome site was the first to relay the news: Intel is calling it quits. Intel officials have already contacted a number of partners to confirm that no further investments will be made in this segment, although this will not affect the Group's other divisions. What's more, while Intel no longer plans to sell any NUCs in the near future, it is not calling into question the follow-up of machines currently sold and already distributed. A new page is being turned...
