Microsemi Closes Deals; Gates Joins TransDimension
With some Orange County technology companies quietly thinning out local operations, it begs the question: is all the nipping and tucking a prelude to bigger cuts or the shuttering of operations?
Take Gateway Inc. The PC maker just eliminated 130 jobs from its call center operations in Lake Forest, leaving 400 employees at the site, which houses its business sales operations.
The company has indicated there could be more layoffs to come, pending further operations reviews.
With the return of company founder Ted Waitt to the chief executive’s seat and a renewed focus on sales to consumers, some have guessed that Gateway might shutter its Lake Forest operations entirely and move it down to its new digs in Poway, a San Diego suburb.
Of course Gateway says it is committed to staying in OC, saying it has engineering talent that it doesn’t want to let go. But with many of its executive staff already splitting time between San Diego and OC,and the company in the mood to consolidate,a combination of the two facilities isn’t out of the question.
Then there’s Conexant Systems Inc., which has taken to slowly selling its manufacturing operations and moving them to outsourced chipmakers overseas. The company had been looking for a buyer for its Newport Beach plant, but, without anyone anteing up, has taken to selling it off piecemeal.
Conexant recently sold its photomask manufacturing assets to Jupiter, Fla.-based Photronics Inc, which came just after it restructured the OC wafer fabrication plant, eliminating 450 OC jobs and moving some of its production to Asia.
It’s unclear whether Conexant will try to rid itself of the other more specialized chip making processes at the Newport Beach fab.
But the company has long indicated it wants to shift to a fabless chip making model to help compete against other companies that outsource their entire chip production to contract chip manufacturers.
Any more cuts at these two companies would come as other OC tech names, such as Broadcom Corp., Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. and Ingram Micro Inc., have joined the tech world in thinning out headcount to ride out the economic slump.
Microsemi Completes Deals
Where some companies are thinning out in OC, others are bulking up.
Microsemi Corp. has been busy completing its two recent acquisitions and now says it’s going to see an immediate increase of sales as a result.
The company raised its sales guidance as a result of its acquisitions of New England Semiconductor Corp. and Compensated Devices Inc.
Executives say the deals will strengthen Microsemi’s position in military, space and medical markets, part of the company’s bread and butter. Compensated Devices was acquired for $11.5 million and New England Semi for $9.1 million.
“Since the acquisitions were completed mid-quarter, they are expected to have only a modest impact on revenues and earnings for the fourth quarter and are expected to be more accretive in subsequent quarters,” the company said in a release.
And as if integrating two new companies isn’t difficult enough, Microsemi Chief Executive Jim Peterson has joined the board of upstart chipmaker Morpho Technologies Inc.
“We are extremely pleased to announce Mr. Peterson’s addition to our board of directors. His vast experience in the semiconductor industry and his strategic insight will allow us to grow Morpho Technologies at an even more accelerated rate,” said Morpho Chief Executive Shahriar Sadri.
TransDimension Gets Board Member
Upstart chip designer TransDimension Inc. recently announced Xircom Inc. founder Dirk Gates joined its board of directors. Gates founded communications component maker Xircom at 27 and has grown the company to nearly half a billion dollars in yearly sales. Intel Corp. acquired Xircom in March.
“I am very excited about having direct access to Dirk’s wisdom and extensive experience. Dirk’s accomplished background in business and technology will provide us with an added level of expertise and help us achieve our strategic goals as we grow our company and solution offerings,” said TransDimension founder and Chief Executive Dr. Ping Liang.
Software Maker Expands in Europe
Now that they’ve gone to Europe, they want to expand in Europe. Irvine-based California Software said recently it will be expanding its European operations as is gets more customers for its products that help customers switching to equipment from IBM Corp.
“We continue to see growth opportunities in both domestic and European units. While most of our competitors are contracting during this economic slow down, California Software continues to see significant revenue growth,” said California Software Chief Executive Bruce Acacio. “We are moving slowly and cautiously, but there are opportunities that are coming to fruition from our European hub in Belfast which make it crucial to expand our sales, support and development team.”
