AZDonna

In my last post, I shared the speculative rumors going around Intel about my business group. Well, today we found out numbers 3 and 7 are the facts. My business group has been sold to Marvell.

Here’s what I know after several email updates, and two employee Q & A forums today.

Marvell paid $600 million for the CHG organization, which is about1400 employees, 500 of whom work at the Chandler site. They will acquire all of those employees, along with the rights to the cellular and handheld chips we design. We employees will receive job offers from Marvell within 2-4 weeks; salary, grade level, bonus program and stock options will be included and are expected to be as good or better than our current compensation packages with Intel. If anyone chooses to decline the Marvell offer, they will be terminated from Intel. No separation packages or internal transfers are allowed. Marvell does not currently have a facility here, but is actively seeking one in the Phoenix area to house the 500 Arizona employees. The finalization of the entire deal and transfer will take about 5 months, but should be completed by Christmas, at which time we cease being Intel employees and start being Marvell employees.

They offer health, dental and vision plans, and vacation and sick leave but we don’t know whether they will implement a sabbatical program or where the new facility will be located … it could be within a mile of the Intel site, or 40 miles across town in Glendale.

The COO of Marvell is visiting on Thursday for another open forum, so we may get more answers from her. We hear the majority of their employees have EE degrees, which doesn’t sound promising for mask designers. It’s possible their engineers do layout — some companies do assign their work that way. I am certainly not interested in becoming an engineer and I don’t know many of our engineers who enjoy doing layout. One guy in our group used to work for Marvell and he said they do not allow tele-commuting. Employees have desktops, not laptops, and you can only use webmail from outside the company walls. I think we need to help them change that.

Marvell’s stock dipped today while Intel’s went up. We hope that doesn’t mean we are considered the albatross, but that it’s just normal market fluctuations tied to a major business deal.

Well, I got what I prayed for: everyone who needs a job has a job, and I retained my salary and health insurance. I’m happy about that. There are a lot of unknowns and the change is a bit scary, but it’s also exciting. I feel the loss of leaving Intel, but am thankful it’s to a company with such a great reputation. I’m sure over the next several days, weeks and months, things will become clearer and we’ll settle back into a routine.

Many of you have asked if I have heard any news regarding my job with Intel. These are the top ten rumors I am hearing.

1. My group is being sold to Freescale.
2. My group is being sold to Motorola.
3. My group is being sold to an unknown company.
4. The business is being sold, but we employees are being laid off.
5. We will be offered our choice of 2 months of pay to leave immediately, or 2 months of paid redeployment to find another position within Intel. (Good luck!)
6. The business is not being sold, but the work is being outsourced. My group will be downsized.
7. We will be notified before the end of the quarter (June 30).
8. The axe will fall on July 19.
9. We are not being sold, and are adding new projects to the roadmap.
10. We are moving our headquarters to Hawaii, and our newest computer will be called the “pine-Apple”.

I like numbers 9 and 10 best.

If you have read any recent technology industry news, you have probably heard the speculation that Intel is negotiating to sell off their communications businesses. That would include me. I work in the XScale group, designing chips for cell phones and PDAs. So far, Intel has neither confirmed nor denied these rumors, nor have they released anything internally to give employees a hint of what may lie ahead. But lower level managers are beginning to encourage us to keep our eyes open for available positions outside the division and take any opportunities that we see. They are even assisting in the internal search, telling us how many openings other groups expect to have, and speculating on headcount numbers around the site. The stress level of the group is definitely on the rise, and the morale is plummeting. We had a short training session this afternoon on a new tool, and everyone just sat looking straight ahead. The facilitator asked if anyone had any questions, and no one moved. The usual animated interaction of our team is in the toilet.

Please pray that the leaders of our company would have wisdom as they make these life changing decisions for so many people and families. My prayer is that anyone who really needs a job will have a job. I know there are some who would be more than willing and able to take retirement or a voluntary severance package, and go play or do something else. But we have many people in our group whose paychecks are supporting families, and whose lives could be dramatically challenged if they suddenly find themselves without a job.

As for me, my first choice is obviously to stay with Intel. I really love all the wonderful benefits Intel provides (retirement, sabbaticals, discount programs, stock*, etc.). But I need my salary and health benefits most of all, and if I get “sold” to another company, so be it.

On another subject (but sort of related to my work), I must say I’m really mad at Daryl. He got me hooked on those puzzles and now, not only am I routing colored lines all day long on my job, I come home and route colored lines all evening and go to bed dreaming about routing colored lines! I can’t get them out of my head. Aaarrghhh!

(* stock used to be a valuable benefit, but lately it hasn’t been worth squat! 😉 )