Michael Cadigan, IBM’s microchip VP, broke the news to managers in East Fishkill
It appears that IBM’s sale of its microchip manufacturing business to GlobalFoundries has fallen apart.
IBM managers at the company’s computer chip factory in East Fishkill were told today that the deal to sell its microchip unit to GlobalFoundries has been killed.
The Poughkeepsie Journal, citing anonymous sources with knowledge of the inner workings of IBM, said the deal had been dubbed “Project Next.”
The Journal reported that the talks may have not only died because of price, but perhaps because of national security concerns. IBM is a so-called “trusted foundry” for the U.S. military and GlobalFoundries is owned by the government of Abu Dhabi.
IBM had been seeking as much as $2 billion in the deal, although sources said last week that GlobalFoundries has presented IBM with its final offer and that IBM may have not thought it was high enough.
Some have suggested that IBM and GlobalFoundries might do the deal as a joint venture, which may have complicated matters.
The Times Union reported Monday that GlobalFoundries may have been trying to irk IBM by running full-page help wanted ads in the Poughkeepsie Journal and the Burlington Free Press last Sunday, as a way to show IBM that it didn’t need the deal to get IBM’s talent and capabilities.
Alliance@IBM, a union affiliated group that advocates for IBM workers, said it was told that Mike Cadigan, the vice president and GM of IBM’s microelectronics unit, told managers the deal was off.
There had been other rumors flying around in the past week that indicated the deal was dead as well.
GlobalFoundries spokesman Travis Bullard said Tuesday the company does not comment on rumors or speculation.
IBM has been shopping its microchip unit for a while now, and others such as Intel and TSMC had already turned IBM down.
However, Alain Kaloyeros, the head of the SUNY College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering in Albany, where IBM does a large portion of its chip research, said today to “stay tuned” when it came to the rumored GlobalFoundries deal.
The ad that ran in the Free Press