On Friday afternoon, The Wall Street Journal reported Intel had been approached by fellow chip giant Qualcomm about a possible takeover. While any deal is described as “far from certain,” according to the paper’s unnamed sources, it would represent a tremendous fall for a company that had been the most valuable chip company in the world, based largely on its x86 processor technology that for years had triumphed over Qualcomm’s Arm chips outside of the phone space.
The New York Times corroborated the report on Friday evening, adding that “Qualcomm has not yet made an official offer for Intel.”
If a deal were made — and survived regulatory scrutiny — it would be a massive coup for Qualcomm, which reentered the desktop processor market…