Earlier this year, Intel took the very Roman attitude of decimating its work force and that, coupled with the death of that genius, Andy Grove, marked a real sea change for Chipzilla.

Although it is still awash with cash, Intel made a very big mistake in not jumping on the mobile band wagon early enough and so missed the boat in a big way as PCs are still, well, so passe.

For the split to happen, according to financial analyst Seeking Alpha, all it will take for the breaking up of the chip ship that is a 21st century Titanic, is for an activist to be an unexpected iceberg in the North Atlantic

The analysts reckon that the obvious divide would be to separate its PC business from its data centre and internet of things business.

Intel, like Microsoft, hasn’t got a solid track record of buying companies to grow its business and is mired in the myth of Moore’s Law which actually ran out of steam about 10 years ago.

It makes perfect sense for Intel to split in half because its PC business, although still profitable, has no real direction nor a genius like Grove to transform it.

Intel doesn’t talk to me anymore, but even if it did, it would spin out the usual line which consists of those meaningless two words, “no comment”.