IT LIFE

Transmeta Cuts 39 Percent of Workforce, Refocuses on IP Licensing

75 employees cast away as Transmeta restructures its business

Transmeta Corporation on Monday announced that it is giving up on its engineering services to focus on developing and licensing intellectual property. The news follows the company’s initial phase of its re-alignment earlier this week by decreasing its worldwide workforce by approximately 39 percent, or 75 employees, most of whom worked in the engineering services business.

“Transmeta has a long history of pioneering innovative technologies that have resulted in a very strong intellectual property portfolio,” said Lester Crudele, president and CEO. “After a critical evaluation of all our lines of businesses, we have decided that IP development and licensing will be our core business activity going forward. We continue to believe that this is the best way for us to deliver our technology to the market and monetize our investments. Therefore, we have initiated a restructuring plan to re-align our headcount and expenses accordingly.”

The troubled chip designer also took the initial steps to close its sales and support offices in Taiwan and Japan. Over the next two quarters, as the company completes its existing engineering services work, the company expects to further reduce its headcount by about 25 to 55 people, depending on the level of support required for the Microsoft FlexGo program, the company said.

Shares of the Santa Clara company fell near a 52-week low at about 13 percent to 90 cents upon release of the news, but has since slightly recovered to 95 cents.

“We believe that by focusing our time and resources on our IP licensing, we can better serve the IDM (integrated device manufacturer) customer base and continue to develop additional IP to make our technologies accessible to a much larger customer base,” Crudele added.