To me it seems like maybe intel is trying to prepare there shareholders for something. After that moores law thing a while back I would think there shareholders were pretty confident that intel had it all under control.

Now all of a sudden they see they have a problem and need to make a pretty big expenditure to buy some new technologhy say like poet or pet to try and catch up again.

I think this is a way a preparing there shareholders without causing a hugh backlash, in the real world it would be called eating crow!

Just a thought.