14 DAY TRIAL // As if all the other things AMD did this year weren't enough of a concern, Advanced Micro Devices is preparing to make another move that will leave the world reeling from the surprise.
Granted, having found out about it in advance, people won't really be surprised when it happens. Then again, being surprised sooner, and not in a good way, isn't about to make things any better.
The Lone Star campus in Austin, Texas, is a sort of secondary headquarters. It is one of the major ones actually.
That is why some may find it shocking that AMD would just up and sell it to the highest bidder.
It is doubly bemusing when considering that the company will only make between $150 and $200 million from the deal (115 to 154 million Euro), most of which it won't get to keep. The proceeds will be used to fund chip development.
One might argue that AMD, in the past, sold and leased its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, plus a building near Toronto.
If the company pulled that off and eventually recovered, it could very well do the same in this situation.
On the other hand, despite Sunnyvale being the so-called seat of power, Lone Star, Austin, is more of a home to the company, as it is the place where many of the worldwide business operations are managed.
One would think that good sales during the Thanksgiving week, and then Black Friday and Cyber Monday, would have had some effect on this turn of events. Sadly, it was not enough to curb the decision.
Then again, a week of good fortune isn't going to compensate for years of business decline, the longer PC replacement cycles and the late arrival of tablet-ready AMD processors.
Things are serious enough that AMD is going forward with its layoff plans, wherein a few thousand people will join the 1,700 that will have lost their jobs by the end of the year (2012).