Who was the CEO of Intel during the transition from Pentium to Core processors?

Paul Otellini was the CEO of Intel during the transition from Pentium to Core processors.

Otellini became Intel’s president and CEO on May 18, 2005, succeeding Craig Barrett. He had already led important processor and chipset businesses and was involved in Intel’s relationship with IBM and Apple. His tenure covered the company’s shift from the Pentium era toward the Core microarchitecture, introduced in 2006.

The Core family helped Intel recover performance leadership after strong competition from AMD. Otellini also oversaw Intel’s landmark decision to supply processors for Apple’s Macintosh computers, beginning in 2006. He was Intel’s first CEO who was not an engineer by training.

A common mix-up is Brian Krzanich, who succeeded Otellini in May 2013. Andrew Grove and Craig Barrett were earlier Intel leaders, but neither was CEO during the Pentium-to-Core transition described here.