| After Infineon, The Name Will Be ... |
| Written by FNN contributor |
The wireline division of Infineon, a DSL leader, has been sold to Golden Gate Capital for 250M euro and will soon need a new name. (Suggestions anyone?) Christian Wolff will be working harder than ever to beat the other three DSL chipmakers, with the incentives of a private company, Golden Gate Capital. John Knoll of Golden Gate was at Covad in 1999 when DSL first boomed, back when Bob Knowling expected to destroy the incumbents. Knowling was wrong.
Imran Hajimusa, who is enthusiastic about the possibilities, writes, “The new company will be fabless. Currently almost 2/3 of Wireline division production is already fabless, i.e. produced other than at Infineon fabs. The Wireline Division is sold as a complete unit, continuity is preserved in products, projects, locations and personnel. The new company will focus on bringing more innovations to the broadband communication world.”
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Wolff will go along as CEO , and I was very glad to hear all of the 900 staff now working with the division are expected to move to the new company. All product lines will continue. Buyouts nearly always structure senior executive pay with very strong incentives, so look for <whatever the new company is called> to be aggressive with new products.
