英特尔将裁减1,000名经理人员
作者/转载者: ZDNet 中国
发表时间:2006-7-14 22:05:02
|
英特尔公司(Intel Corp.)承认它的管理层人浮于事，表示它将裁减1,000名经理人。英特尔此前进行了一次旨在提高管理效率的内部评估，得出了上述结论。
对英特尔这家有著10.3万名员工的芯片生产巨头来说，此次裁员的大背景是行业竞争日渐加剧。英特尔及其竞争对手高级微设备公司(AMD)都为竞争付出了代价。英特尔的游戏芯片多年来一直在苦苦追赶AMD产品的性能，不过一些高端个人电脑生产商正在谈论英特尔一款新芯片的测试结果，这款芯片是专门针对有利可图的游戏市场开发的。
员工数量在2005年增长了17%的英特尔公司说，公司在世界各地的各个管理层都会受到此次裁员的影响。将于下周三公布第二季度业绩的英特尔公司表示，在完成这次成立38年来的首次管理层裁员后，可能会宣布进一步的成本削减措施。
英特尔公司的首席执行长欧德宁(Paul Otellini)在4月底时宣布，计划对公司业务进行一次彻底评估。根据评估结果，英特尔制定了出售部分通讯芯片生产业务的计划。欧德宁周四在致公司员工的一份备忘录中说，此次评估发现，五年来公司经理人员的增长速度比公司员工总数的增长速度还要快，这影响了公司的决策速度。欧德宁写道：“在过去25年的个人电脑时代我们一直做得非常好，但现在需要根据行业的发展方向调整。”
欧德宁预计，行业竞争将会加剧，价格竞争的力度将会加大。正是这种竞争环境导致AMD公司上周发布了第二季度收入预警。他写道：“我们的目标和使命是在尚有办法和时间的时候再造英特尔，确保我们能继续维持业内第一的位置。”
分析师们一直预计英特尔会大量裁员，还认为裁员不会到此为止。雷曼兄弟公司(Lehman Brothers)的分析师提姆•卢克(Tim Luke)在一份研究报告中预计，上述业务评估可能会导致英特尔裁员10,000人，他认为评估将持续到八月份。Jefferies & Co.的分析师John Lau说：“我们欢迎这一削减成本的努力，这是非常需要的。我们相信今年还会实施更多削减成本的措施，因为英特尔确实在微调业务模式。”
在股价周四普遍下跌的大背景下，英特尔的股票在那斯达克市场周四收盘时下跌了16美分，跌至17.72美元。
除了下调产品价格外，一项被称做Core的新型设计也成了英特尔回击AMD竞争的武器，这项设计将被用在该公司三项重要的产品上──最近披露的服务器用芯片Xeon，台式电脑用Conroe芯片，以及将于8月份推出的笔记本电脑用芯片Merom。
Conroe芯片7月27日将以Core 2 Duo的名称正式推出，它正在游戏业引起不同寻常的反响。虽然AMD在被游戏玩家喜爱的多数高端台式电脑领域已经取代了英特尔的地位，但一些游戏产品生产商表示，初步的测试结果使他们确信，游戏玩家们可能很快会转向使用了英特尔芯片的游戏产品。
游戏用个人电脑生产商Falcon Northwest的总裁凯尔特•瑞夫斯(Kelt Reeves)说：“我们绝对喜欢AMD的产品，但该公司产品今年7月底时将遭受重击。”
游戏用个人电脑生产商VoodooPC的总裁兼首席技术长拉胡尔•苏德(Rahul Sood)也是AMD产品的喜好者。他预计，随著Conroe芯片的不断改进，该公司的游戏产品将从100%使用AMD芯片到半数采用英特尔的芯片。
瑞夫斯说，Falcon公司最近进行的测试显示，那些使用了最优型Conroe芯片的个人电脑，其运行速度比安装了AMD同级别Athlon FX-62芯片的个人电脑平均快34%，而使用Conroe芯片电脑的散热量也要比使用Athlon FX-62芯片的个人电脑低。使用英特尔的芯片，Falcon的产品还能使“超频”(over-clocking)技术得到更好的发挥，游戏玩家通过这一技术可以增加电脑的运行速度。
AMD的管理人士表示，他们计划开发出性能超过Conroe芯片的产品。像AMD的Athlon 64芯片一样，英特尔的Core 2 Duo芯片计划安装两个微处理器，而AMD现在为了取悦游戏玩家准备推出装有四个微处理器的产品，它称之为4x4。
越来越多的电脑游戏都在进行改良，旨在适应多个微处理器环境，而且游戏玩家现在往往同时运行著好几个这类电脑游戏，因此运算能力强大的AMD芯片就显得特别有用了。
Intel To Lay Off 1,000 Managers
Intel Corp., acknowledging that its management structure had become bloated, said it is laying off 1,000 managers as a result of a previously announced internal study to improve efficiency.
The cuts by the giant chip maker, which had about 103,000 employees at the end of March, come amid stiffening competition that is taking its toll on both Intel and rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Intel has been struggling to match the performance of AMD chips, although some makers of high-end personal computers are discussing test results for a new Intel chip that point to progress in courting the influential gaming market.
Intel, whose work force swelled 17% in 2005, said the job reductions would affect all levels of management and all geographies. The Santa Clara, Calif., company, which will report second-quarter results Wednesday, said it may announce further cost-cutting moves following the management reduction, the first in its 38-year history.
Paul Otellini, chief executive officer, in late April announced plans for a top-to-bottom review of Intel’s operations. That review has already precipitated plans to sell some operations that produce communication chips. In a memo to employees yesterday, Mr. Otellini said the review had found that the number of managers in the past five years had grown faster, proportionally, than Intel’s total headcount, bogging down decision making. ’We have done extremely well over the past 25 years of the PC era,’ Mr. Otellini wrote. ’But we need to adjust now for where our industry is going.’
Mr. Otellini predicted tougher competition and ’aggressive pricing,’ an environment that last week contributed to AMD’s announcement that second-quarter revenue would be lower than expected. ’Our objective, and our destiny, is to refashion Intel now while we have the means and the time to do so, and ensure we continue to remain number one,’ he wrote.
Analysts have been expecting substantial work-force reductions from the company, and don’t expect the cuts to stop here. Tim Luke, an analyst at Lehman Brothers, predicted in a research note that Intel might trim about 10,000 employees as part of the review, which he expects to continue into August. ’We like the cost-reduction efforts, and feel it is much needed,’ said John Lau, an analyst with Jefferies & Co. ’We believe there will be more cuts during the year as Intel really fine-tunes its business model.’
Amid a broad decline in stock prices yesterday, Intel shares closed at $17.72, off 16 cents, in 4 p.m. Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading.
Besides price cuts, Intel has been firing back at AMD with a new design called Core that will be used for three key products -- a recently announced Xeon chip for servers, a chip dubbed Conroe for desktop PCs and a chip dubbed Merom that will be launched in August for laptops.
Conroe, which will be formally introduced July 27 as the Core 2 Duo, is attracting unusually positive buzz in the gaming community. AMD has displaced Intel from most high-end desktop PCs favored by gamers, but some manufacturers of those systems say early test results have convinced them that enthusiasts may quickly shift to Intel-based systems.
’We absolutely love the guys at AMD,’ said Kelt Reeves, president of Falcon Northwest, a maker of gaming PCs in Medford, Ore. ’But they are going to get hammered here at the end of July.’
Rahul Sood, another AMD fan who is president and chief technology officer of game-PC maker VoodooPC, predicted its desktop systems could go from 100% AMD-powered to about half Intel-based, based on its evaluation of Conroe.
Mr. Reeves says Falcon’s tests recently showed a speed advantage averaging 34% for a PC running a top-of-the-line Conroe model over AMD’s comparable Athlon FX-62 chip, and said the machine ran at cooler temperatures than the AMD-based system. Falcon also was able to more dramatically exploit ’over-clocking’ with the Intel chip, a technique gamers use to boost speeds over the ratings promoted by chip makers. For example, Falcon operated the Conroe-based machine at 3.75 gigahertz, up from its rated clock speed of 2.93 gigahertz.
AMD executives say they have plans to leapfrog Conroe, in part by exploiting the power of additional calculating engines. Where the Core 2 Duo will have circuitry for two microprocessors, as does AMD’s Athlon 64 chip, AMD plans to court gamers by packing two such ’dual-core’ chips together, offering four processors in a design it calls 4x4.
Such horsepower could be particularly useful as more computer games are modified to take advantage of multiple processors, and users begin running several such programs at once -- a feat AMD calls ’megatasking,’ said Patrick Moorhead, AMD vice president of global marketing. |
| 【发表看法】【查看评论】【关闭页面】【返回顶部】 |
|
 更多管理知识
| | |
|
