Intel Corp, the world's biggest microchip maker, said on August 09 that it had sold a unit specialising in telephone technology to a privately held company, marking its exit from a once-promising business.
Intel and the purchasing company, Eicon Networks, did not reveal financial terms of the deal, but Intel said it would affect about 600 employees, most of whom were expected to join the staff of Eicon.
Intel has been looking to sell or shut down underperforming businesses as it tries to save $1 billion and refocus on its mainstay computer microprocessor business in the face of fierce competition from rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
Intel said the sale of the unit - known as the media and signalling business that makes hardware and software to process voice and data over networks - was not actually part of that program but could help achieve those cost-cutting goals.
"Negotiations for this transaction were already underway before Intel started looking at the analysis of our overall business," Intel spokeswoman Barbara Grimes said.
"But this divestiture should aid in that effort to become leaner or more focused."
Intel once viewed telephone technology as a promising growth market and made big bets to tap into it, including buying computer telephony company Dialogic in 1999 for $780 million in cash.
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