Generally, people do not consider the impact of chip stock Intel’s (INTC) Israeli operations. Yesterday, we found out that they were adjusting their pay packets to remove a special “Israeli component” and replace it with a higher base salary. Today, we find that Intel Israel is actually leading a major drive forward in the market. Intel investors ate it up and sent Intel shares surging up nearly 4% in Wednesday afternoon’s trading.
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Intel’s ongoing global transformation is bringing with it new opportunity to shine in a changing landscape, a point that Intel’s general manager and vice president of wireless communications Ilan Bressler is eager to move on. Bressler noted, “If you need strong and dedicated teams that would deliver your must-not-fail projects… Israel is the place for you to go. This is maybe the only place to go. Because it’s in our DNA. It’s what we do.”
Bressler was eager to portray Intel Israel not as some outlier, but rather as a major part of the discussion. Admittedly, a certain amount of that is self-preservation. With Intel cutting employees rapidly, being valuable is really the only way to stick around. So it is not surprising that Bressler would push hard on just how valuable Intel Israel is. But Intel Israel is out to prove that it can generate value, which it is doing through a variety of means, including embracing artificial intelligence (AI) throughout the company.
Fleet Repair
Meanwhile, Intel is getting together with Microsoft (MSFT) to produce an impressive new system called Intel vPro Fleet Services. Cloud native and available through the Microsoft Intune partner portal, vPro Fleet is designed to give companies with large numbers of computers a better way to keep them all up to snuff.
Reports note this is the first time that a fleet management tool focused on silicon has been built into Intune. This in turn provides a more effective connection between hardware and cloud tools, allowing users to more effectively push software updates to large numbers of computers. Better yet, vPro Fleet works whether the computers in question are on or off, and no matter where they are located.
Is Intel a Buy, Hold or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Hold consensus rating on INTC stock based on three Buys, 24 Holds and six Sells assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 47.82% rally in its share price over the past year, the average INTC price target of $35.44 per share implies 7.82% downside risk.
