Well, this is a bit of a surprise—Intel today announced that it has ended its Intel Developer Forum program, effective immediately. That includes the cancellation of IDF17, which was scheduled for mid-August in San Francisco.
Intel made the announcement in a brief statement posted to its IDF website.
"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."
There are no other details associated with Intel's decision to pull the plug on IDF.
Though surprising after all these years—the first IDF took place in 1997—the move is not completely out of left field. Intel previously said it would not hold an IDF event in China this year, and that the fall event in San Francisco would have a new format. The company promised more details to come.
Intel has been making announcements both big and small at its IDF events throughout the years. Sometimes Intel would talk about technologies it was working on, and other times it would use these events as launch pads for CPU products, such as Kaby Lake.
Where Intel goes from here is anyone's guess. It seems unlikely that the company would not replace IDF with something else, perhaps an event that doesn't take place twice a year. But what that is and what organization will host it is something we'll have to wait and see.
