phil@amd70.UUCP (Phil Ngai) (05/03/84)
> From: rpk@ecsvax.UUCP > Subject: Re: Intel's Dubious Timings > Message-ID: <2403@ecsvax.UUCP> > > It would be nice if Intel could ship microprocessors as quickly > as their employees respond to net criticism. > > -Dick ...decvax!mcnc!ecsvax!rpk I'd like to let you guys in on a little secret, or maybe it's not that secret, people have just forgotten. I almost forgot myself, but just today some unpleasant memories came back. Back in 1982 the economy wasn't doing well and hadn't been for a while. Things were so bad in fact that companies like Intel and AMD were in trouble. There had been a great demand for ICs a few years back and many semiconductor houses implemented plans for expansion. They hired lots of people and started construction on new fab lines. Suddenly, the demand vanished into thin air. It was pretty scary. The dreaded word "layoff" started making the rounds. Some companies did just that. Intel and AMD tried something different. AMD asked/required their employees to work a 48 hour week. (I think. I really hate to think of those times.) Intel asked their employees to work extra hours too (I don't remember the number). But the market didn't improve. More red ink on the books. Intel took another step: they cut their employees' paychecks by up to 10%. It went on for months. When is the axe going to fall, we all wondered. Finally the economy turned. Orders came pouring in. Salesmen started quoting leadtimes of 52 weeks and still got more orders. Ok, we're expanding again, even with the risk that we'll get burned again. But I really don't want to hear about how short-sighted the IC houses are for not building extra fab line capacity during the slack years. We were busy trying not to layoff our employees. (I hope everyone knows that you can't turn on a new fab line in a month, that it takes years to add new capacity.) -- Phil Ngai (408) 988-7777 {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amd70!phil
lowry@fortune.UUCP (John Lowry) (05/10/84)
History will note that AMD's Jerry Sanders issued in 1984 a little early by firing about 200 people and hiring back about half of them to avoid a "layoff", which he had publicly promised not to do.