This was a (rare, good) post from Yahoo msg board.
Credit goes to bjak1 for the content of the post.
J
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Siliconix current Q, earnings & revenue have indeed declined. I think it is going to get much worse.
From my view as an engineer, current losses are mostly because of severance payments to our experienced and
senior folks. While these costs subtract from current earnings, the effect of the loss of their knowledge and skill
on Siliconix' future seems grim.
Vishay seems to have no concept of what allows a progressive Silicon Valley semiconductor company to
survive, let alone advance and profit. Our previous leaders made us feel part of a team by including us in
decisions and compensating us for our success. As a consequence, most of us stayed through Chapter 11.
Siliconix has new technology in the engineering pipeline that will be unable to gain the market dominance it has
in the recent past. While our technology is great, our competitors will quickly copy its function as usual. Vishay
has fired our marketing and sales support people who really understood our goals, processes, and products
and had relationships with the technical industry that uses our chips, and the press that discusses our
breakthroughs. Previously these people got the word out and established our products before our competitors
could respond. Vishay does not understand this requirement. Our competitors will eat our lunch.
There will soon be no new technology. Siliconix made gems. Vishay-Siliconix will soon make delayed copies of
IR or other designs. Our profit came from designed-in leading-edge technology. With the departure of our
creative engineering, marketing, and sales people, Vishay-Siliconix becomes another me-too commodity
supplier. Designing and marketing power semiconductor technology is not the same as designing and marketing
resistors and capacitors. This was an opportunity squandered and a fine company wrecked. It is too late to
recover.
I'll stay until my annual bonus is paid -- if I can stand it. Every other person in my department has plans to quit,
form a startup, or retire early. A brilliant engineer friend turned down a major promotion and salary increase
counter-offered when he gave notice he'd resign to go to a competitor. He might have stayed, except he found
our Santa Clara president could not approve the counter offer. Approval, slow and grudging, had to come from
Vishay in PA. The same day, Vishay fired the people who helped promote his designs in the market. No
amount of current salary was worth his future professional failure. Siliconix morale, company wide, was much
better when we were in bankruptcy a few years ago. Before Vishay, people worked 12 hours and weekends,
it's now 8 X 5.
It may be that Vishay takes these actions to drive down the price of Siliconix stock for 100% acquisition. In the
process they have destroyed Siliconix. I have sold my Siliconix stock and would not even consider acquiring
VSH.
Others have said Siliconix assets cover its acquisition costs. That may have been true, but it is not true now.
Siliconix assets were its creative people. Many are gone in fact. All are gone in spirit. The shell that remains
could not conceivably be worth the cost.
Everyone I know thinks Siliconix is mortally wounded and will die an ugly death. Lacking our previous profit, it
may prove difficult for VSH to service the debt. VSH could be at risk.
I hope this proves wrong because I love Siliconix. Vishay could have been a strong partner. They could have
changed the damaging practices that retarded Temic's profitability. Unfortunately they kept the bad and added
more inappropriate ones. Hopefully after this experience, if Vishay survives, its leadership will have learned that
there is a reason for Silicon Valley's success.
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