How Qualcomm Tried and Failed to Steal Intel's Crown Jewel 

In early November, Qualcomm Inc. Chairman Paul Jacobs stood on a stage in the heart of Silicon Valley and vowed to break Intel Corp.’s stranglehold on the world’s most lucrative chip business.

The mobile internet and cloud computing were booming and the data centers running this digital economy had an insatiable thirst for computer servers -- and especially the powerful, expensive server chips that Intel churns out by the million. Qualcomm had spent five years and hundreds of millions of dollars designing competing processors, trying to expand beyond its mobile business. Jacobs was leading a coming-out party featuring tech giants like Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co., which had committed to try the new gear.