No More IDF, Intel Scuttles Signature Tech Conference

The Intel Developers Forum (IDF) has been a running trend for the global chip makers for over two decades. It was meant to be an event where the company and other developers could show off the technologies that they have developed. This is no longer the case since Intel recently scrubbed the event and canceled the scheduled 2017 conference.

What’s startling about this development, however, is the fact that it was so discreet despite the significance of the event. On the IDF website, the company posted a short announcement that barely qualifies as a snippet.

“Intel has evolved its event portfolio and decided to retire the IDF program moving forward,” the announcement reads. “Thank you for nearly 20 great years with the Intel Developer Forum! Intel has a number of resources available on intel.com, including a Resource and Design Center with documentation, software, and tools for designers, engineers, and developers. As always, our customers, partners, and developers should reach out to their Intel representative with questions.”

As Tom’s Hardware reports, the scrapping of the event might actually make sense when considering Intel’s current state. When the conference was first started, Intel was largely a microchip manufacturer. These days, it has expanded to a lot of fields, including data centers and even autonomous driving. This made the IDF, which lasted only three days, too cumbersome to be effective at delivering a concise message.

This doesn’t mean that Intel has completely given up on hosting events either. It’s more likely that the company will simply hold several events throughout the year, with different conferences having specialized topics. For the publishing companies covering these events, the change is welcome.

It will result in more opportunities to cover the full line-up of products and services that are showcased during the events. More often than not, the recent IDFs have been far too complex for the media to really get a sense of. Focused-driven conferences would solve this problem.