NXP-- WTF?

That may be a misconception. Consumer electronics is undergoing massive changes. The equivalent of a plain vanilla VCR these days is a hard-disk-backed DVD recorder. It has more processing capacity than most typical embedded systems --- and that's before you add HDTV, and all the crazy copy-protection schemes that come with it, to the mix

In message , dated Sun, 3 Sep 2006, mw writes

So NXP is pronounce Nah-Sp? What about WTF? (;-)

I saw their ad on a financial website (bigcharts.marketwatch.com), not a technical site.

It's in their info that 70% of NXP's business is concentrated among only 50 or so direct customers, and the remaining 30% is split between

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

What that will likely mean is the jellybean parts will either die or spun off as another company. The company will then concentrate on high end high integration parts like set top boxes, deal with 10 companies globally and as an afterthought distribution.

When one or two of the large companies catches a cold or switches to another company they will bring down NXP.

Anyone remember Brooktree or even if Connexant actually ship any of their parts after 1 year of takeover that was not a broadband/comms chip?

"Spehro Pefhany" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

I could imagine that if you are among those 50, you probably don't even use that website.

At an average of $70M+ per big customer per year, they could afford to dedicate scores of employees full-time for each one.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Just say the words: "World Trade Federation", or if you're trash-talking: "Waste Treatment Facility".

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

"Spehro Pefhany" schreef in bericht news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Exactly, the big customers dictate exactly what they want, not just pick from what happens to be available. Oh, and sometimes they sell a few tubes or perhaps an entire reel to poor buggers like me ;)

"John Woodgate" skrev i meddelandet news:6w5IQuSnGH+ snipped-for-privacy@jmwa.demon.co.uk...

I think the origin is the "NeXPeria" chips for DVD Recorders

I know that Microdyne didn't use anything when I worked there, even though their rep was always dropping off databooks and trying to get them to design in their chips, or at least list them as second source for jellybean parts. They had parted way in the early '80s because of delivery problems. Luckily, everything was jellybean and readily available from National or other sources. that was one thing they were consistent about. if a vendor was blacklisted, it was usually forever, I blacklisted beckman after a problem with their SMD pots failing after board wash. We were using a method and chemicals they had approved, but a board fresh out of the dryer would have two or three bad pots, or about 32 percent failure rate. I switched to Bourns and had almost Zero problems. All I did have was assembly being too rough on a board and breaking them loose from the PC board. I caught them trying to replace the pots without sending them back to the module test line to be recalibrated. Some people lost their jobs.

La Scala?

Hello Spehro,

Then one of those $70M+ customers unexpectedly goes away for some reason and there'll be a Richter scale 6+ happening. Layoffs, stock slide, the usual. The other risk is that large customers easily have you over the barrel for margins as has been evidenced numerous times in automotive. Remember Senor Lopez?

Relying mostly on existing large customers is a risky business strategy. Catering to small ones is the ticket to long term growth. TI has understood that, and so did National, Analog Devices, OnSemi and a few others.

A week ago one of my clients (smaller biz) had trouble obtaining a TI part that had gone out of stock for a few weeks. I called TI directly and they bent over backwards for that customer. My call was Friday and by Monday the parts arrived. That's how to do business. Now try this with some of the big EU companies. I have tried and it resulted in broken promises and utter frustration. Unless you are the V.P. of Engineering at General Motors they don't seem to take it too serious.

"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:7DHKg.23607$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...

It's also possible a new $70M+ customer pops out of the blue. New staff to be hired, stock going through the roof, the usual.

Being the V.P. of Engineering at GM has its merits.

I have to agree with Joerg

I don't care if you have 5 *huge* customers. The parts business is cut-throat, and the outfits with the best customer service to both engineers and procurement will win in the end. Philips has been going downhill recently (and that's a shame because they have some really nice stuff).

TI is now my vendor of choice for many things for one simple reason: If I call for assistance (email or phone) I get a response within an hour (working day hour). Analog Devices now do the same, as do National and others. I just dropped a BigName[tm] from my updated designs because I can't get support.

I only do a few million parts a year, but multiply that by all the small outfits that do 'a few million parts a year' and it adds up in a hurry.

Cheers

PeteS

A percent or two change in overall sales shouldn't make that much difference to stock prices, unless the vultures smell a trend.

They even make some pretty decent products these days.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

Hello Frank,

Hard to do. If they want an instant new $70M+ customer they need to pry them away from a competitor and that usually comes with painful discounts. The vast majority of such large customers are the ones that used to be the little guy 10 years ago. Woe to those manufacturers who have not courted that little guy back then. All they could do is wrestle them out of the hands of a competitor.

Old saying in sales: The small acount can become tomorrow's big account. If you don't groom it, someone else will.

"Joerg" schreef in bericht news:PEIKg.23625$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr11.news.prodigy.com...

So they should be happy, when they loose a $70M+ customer to a competitor, and letting them give the painful discounts... What you seem to miss here, is that it doesn't matter much to loose a customer occasionally; it happens at the competitors side too.

No need to wrestle. Loyalty stops when the competitors offerings are better value for money. Nothing to 'Woe'.

And that's the moment to steal them away. Let someone else do the grooming. It's all about business decisions, and not all are neccesairily bad. And fluctuations aren't bad either. Look at your own business, not every month or year is equal. If you had a few $70M+ customers, you wouldn't be looking for bread crumbs. Or would you ? ;)

Hello Frank,

That's what people at Intel must have thought as well. Until this weekend, that is. Rumors have it that there is going to be a huge layoff tomorrow, something north of 10,000. I just wished this rumor hadn't leaked out right before the labor day weekend, must have spoiled many a family barbeque around here because our local plant employs about 7000.

Lack of diversification IMHO, plain and simple. They had lots of good stuff in the pipeline but ditched much of it. Sometimes to the point where I almost banged my head on the table (like when they shelved their most excellent CPLD series).

Doesn't usually work in electronics. Except for jelly-bean parts you typically stick to the mfg that's been good to you. At least that's how it works in many American engineering teams. Not in my wildest dreams would I now switch to a LPC ARM. No matter what carrot they hold under my nose.

In fact, I do. One of the very tiny clients from 10 years ago is now a rather substantial one. Had I turned that teeny job down back then this would not be the case. Resting on the laurels is dangerous but, unfortunately, a very frequent occurrence in large companies.

Up to 20,000 according to anonymous sources quoted in the WSJ. Maybe they leaked the 20K figure so when they lay off "only" 10K (10% of their workforce) people will be relieved.

They just sold some of their interesting radio technology to a Taiwan-based company.

Whose ARM would you pick, then? Atmel? Oki? TI has a rump offering, but most of their ARM products are specialized parts and go only to huge-volume automotive and such like OEM customers.

I think industry diversity is probably more important than number of customers. If you have hundeds of customers but they all make cell phones, you're still going down when the market for that product pauses.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany