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Intel Giving Away Free Computers To Employees
Merlyn42 writes, "According to this article at Intel's Web site, Intel is giving Pentium III systems and lots of goodies, including free Internet access, to all its employees. Who else is going to follow this new trend started by Ford?" Don't know, but I wonder how many 'geek houses' we'll see comprised of five Intel employees living in a house with free systems. The cool thing is that the site says that they can use the systems for whatever they want.
Intel are getting really desperate aren't they? The things they'll do to keep their own employees from buying AMD based PC's... (yes, i'm being a bit sarcastic ;-))
Ford should have patented the "process" of giving away computer to employees, to protect their intellectual investment. Then they could license the process to companies like Intel who want to increase their productivity too.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Can we say Northwest?
Can we say 'big brother inside'?
Can we say 'trojan horse'?
There's no way I'd accept a company computer in my house. If they can try to search personal, non company donated computers, imagine the rights you give up by placing a company gift computer in your abode??
Besides, I like my Athlon. It has no product serial number
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
I'd like to see all the major computer companies do this. After all, the computer portion of it is cheap. It's only when the employee says "You expect me to work at home, so you must fix my problems..." that it actually has some cost to it.
I work at AMD and our cubicals are $1500/month/employee. Computers are nothing by comparison.
Josh
Plenty of projects, not enough developers...
The Republican party headquaters, Republican National Committee, has been providing all its employees with free internet access for a while now.
Or maybe I'm talking out my ass again...
Call me paranoid, but I can't but think that Intel would like to keep tabs on what their employees use their machines for. Since they are Pentium III's maybe they'll ensure that the chip ID number (which had everyone annoyed when it first came out) locked on. Hopefully not, but you can only trust a multinational as far as you can throw it.
Where my wife works, they've had a rebate program for several years - the company kicked in some money (a couple of thousand at one point) towards your purchase of a new computer, as an interest free loan. Several of the smaller companies I've come into contact with have had similar programs.
Unfortunately, it appears that as companies grow, benefits like this start disappearing... We'll probably be buying a new Mac G4 under the program at my wife's company soon, as their HR department has started grumblings about doing away with the program.
This is part of what confuses me: it almost universally seems that HR ends up being the department that "champions" cutting the really interesting, set-your-company-apart-from-the-crowd type of benefits... and that only seems to happen when the company reaches some critical mass (200+ people).
Now, it looks as if at some other breakpoint - when you reach the size of GM, or Intel - something else happens internally. I would be really interested to know who lobbied for these initiatives, why they did so, and how they convinced the executives/board/whoever that it was actually in the company's best interest to actually add a benefit instead of "restructuring" one or taking one away.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
My company only gives PC's away to people with pointy hair... (So far, none of them have fallen for the etch-a-sketch trick, either.)
"I'm a scientist! I don't think, I observe!" - Dr. Clayton Forrester
Here's the employee bulliten:
- ---------------------- - ----------------------
INTEL EMPLOYEES WORLDWIDE TO RECEIVE PCs WITH INTERNET ACCESS FOR HOME USE
-----------------------------------------------
Published by Worldwide Employee Communications
March 7, 2000
-----------------------------------------------
Intel is announcing the Intel® Home PC Program, an exciting and ongoing new
benefit designed to provide every Intel employee worldwide with a high
performance PC package and Internet access for personal use at home. Home
delivery of PCs will begin in the third quarter of 2000.
Detailed information about this new benefit is available on Circuit on the
Intel intranet at >
Sponsored by Human Resources and Information Technology, the Home PC Program
will help employees, Intel retirees and their families to participate fully
in the information revolution and take advantage of the education and
e-Commerce opportunities offered by the Internet.
HR and IT project teams are working to make this program a positive
experience for employees and families around the world and will release
additional details about the program as negotiations with vendors and
suppliers proceed.
Blue-badge full-time and part-time Intel employees will be eligible if they
are on the payroll as of a particular date in Q3 that will be selected and
announced later. Intel retirees also will participate. They will receive a
performance segment personal computer with a Pentium® III processor, and
unlimited Internet access. In addition, the offer will include a printer,
Intel® Create & Share(tm) Camera Pack, keyboard, mouse, monitor, graphics
adapter, unlimited use of Internet service, software, tech support and the
choice of one Intel® Play(tm) PC-enhanced toy.
Intel will offer the PC package and Internet access to employees at no
charge to them. Because it is a new kind of benefit, the tax treatment has
not been determined. Intel believes this should not be a taxable item for
employees. In the event government agencies say otherwise, Intel will pay a
portion of taxes through a benefit available to employees who require it.
Intel is requesting proposals from potential suppliers of hardware and
software and from potential vendors of Internet access.
Intel gets to tax deduct the cost of the PCs as a business expense (probably leased?), whereas employees would have to use precious aftertax $$$. Thus it would literally cost employees twice as much to buy the same PCs. This is a nice way of getting wealth into the hands of workers without getting raped by the IRS.
Remember kids, employer-paid health insurance started as a way of getting around FDR's WWII wage and price controls. Hopefully we won't wind up with the same screwed up political consequences with employer-paid PCs, tho the "Digital Divide" propaganda is disconcerting.
Sure would be a lot easier if Big Brother didn't confiscate 4-6 months per year of our labor in the first place, then we could buy our own toys with our own money.
"The base product and service offering will be provided to employees at no charge, but is not tax protected."
You still have to pay the government for the computer, as it is considered part of your salary.
ok then your [sic] infringing on my copyright! Could you as [sic] me next time before STEALING my comments for your own?
Do the PCs belong to the employees, or to Intel? If Intel still owns the PCs, in the event of a dispute between the employee and Intel, Intel can repossess the PC and look at what the employee has been doing on it (on the grounds that the computer is Intel property).
This is quite common actually, I think the only big deal is that Intel have quite a few more employees then DBC. But eg. Nokia here in copenhagen do the same, although I'm not quite sure if this goes for all employees.
funny thing thing is, almost every home in .dk has a pc, yet companies in .dk have done this for a long time, even teachers are getting pc's these days. Must be a socialist thing.
/dev/eskil ---
While Travoltus brings up some of the recent (and imagined, yet possible) events, the gift of a free P3 would be useful to some of the lower-paid staff, like mailroom folks and secretaries who can't quite afford to shell out the ducats for a new system for the family. The Northwest case where the home computers were searched for information was not due to it being Northwest's system, but because a court said so. If Intel gives away the system, it's now the new employees' system, not the companys'. Of course, that can be modified with a fine-print contract-document that Intel may require, I guess that it will be interesting to find out just what has to be done to get a free system.
The P3 tracking number is just one of many. Look at the keys hidden in M$ products, like Office. If I were to use one of these systems, I would make sure the first thing installed after the op system would be a strong-encryption system, from email right down to whole disk scrambling. Luckily for us (so far), the US does not have a law like the one being rammed through the Parliament in the United Kingdom, where even if you forgot the decryption key, you'd go to jail. I wonder which imbecile in Congress will revamp the idea and try to get it passed in the US.
"First things first, but not necessarily in that order."
- Doctor Who
Free PC with built-in hardware ID number (no, that hasn't gone away just because people aren't pissed off about it any more) plus free Internet access. Wow, sounds like the perfect scenario for realworld testing of meterware (pay-per-use software) which was the whole point of the ID number anyways.
Oh, and BTW, meterware is unbeatable. It is the only method that I've ever been able to imagine that is unbreakable (unless you go to court and claim it wasn't you using the system). Picture this: You're going to run Word2k (it would surprise you that an Intel employee was using Windows? Wintel remember) and Word2k needs to call a function SlowDown(). Dynamic linking checks and finds out where SlowDown() is. Oh, it's a COM object on the microsoft.com server. Connect to microsoft.com and send the parameters or whatever and then get the result... if that SlowDown() function is system-critical, this method is foolproof barring someone stealing the DLL or whatever from microsoft.com's server, hacking the program to use it locally, etc.
So, besides getting the net access and PC, they happen to get any up-and-coming software pre-installed?
Esperandi
No, Slashdot paranoids, they ain't doing it so that they can trojan a telescreen into your house. They're doing it because they want their partners to be able to sell you stuff through their exclusive portals.
Time 3:35 PM Friday afternoon.
Place Managers Office.
Manager: Mr. Johnson, I was to have done this report two weeks ago but it slipped me and now I have a priority 1 assignment to take care of in our Caribbean branch ( carnival on the beach ).
Johnson: Ohhhu.
Manager: I need for you to complete it for me.
Johnson: I'll get on it 1st thing monday morning.
Manager: That's when my boss is expecting it.
Johnson: Well I can't come in this weekend. It's our anniversary and Cindy ( his wife ) even sent the kids to grandma.
Manager: Ohh you will be able to find some time to look at it between your celebrations. Congratulations. By the way, how long has it been now?
Johnson: 7 years, but I won't be...
Manager: Good. See you on Monday.
Johnson: But the kids have the computer. They want to surf the net and stuff.
Manager: WHAT? Do you think that's why we gave it to you ? Here, I'll give you a little bonus to cover the gas so you can go get it...
/Johnson** (Breaks out in tears and collapses on the flour.)
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Comment #30 says it counts as income and the employee has to pay taxes on it, so I reckon it belongs to the employee from then on.
--
Infuriate left and right
Call me naive and overly optimistic, but to somewhat respond to all the paranoia I have seen flying around on this subject, why does anyone think Intel even WANTS to track it's employees. Yes, I know all the corporate PR on this subject (I DO work for a multinational, and yes, only trust them as far as I can throw them), but to understand big mean megacorp (TM) you must think like it's executives:
This is the Infrmation Age (Or at least thats what my marketing people tell me)
My Children have a computer (Assuming the exec has children, this is just an example)
They have internet access
They are more productive on class assignments because they have internet access (Remember, a good fast connection and cable preclude actually having to PARENT your children)
So, maybe if I give my employees computers and internet access, they will be more productive on take-home assignments and therefore make me more money so I can buy that second fleet of yachts.
I want to know why everybody seems to think that this is the opening salvo in more Big Brother tactics from Corporations? The Tactics of Northwest aside (one company among THOUSANDS), what the employees do at home is thier buisiness, and the corporations, in thier pursuit of the almighty bottom line, are not going to pour the money into survaillence of every customer without expecting a great return, and there is just no return there. Now, if it were the Government giving out these PC's, I would worry......
You say you want a revolution....
Damn! 50 for an Alpha!! Some of us would be taking home supercomputers! Perhaps I can squeeze my 180 for a used S/390 or one of those Power Challenge I'm always lusting after at work.
Sig 11! Hold out for the T3E man! They're gonna try to lowball you with a crappy Onyx!
Self confessed closet Karma Whore..
.sig: Now legally binding!
Never assume that HR's job is to help out the employees. In all large companies and many small companies, HR is your enemy. It is their job to make sure that nobody gets paid "too much." Their job to make sure that the cost of benefits programs is minimized. Their job to keep the employees from getting too large a piece of the pie of the company's revenues.
They are not there to help you resolve disputes with your boss and/or co-workers. In many large companies, HR will report the contents of any conversation you have with them right back to your manager, especially if it gives the company some kind of leverage over you.
This kind of BS doesn't fly in a startup or small company, but once they get big and faceless, it becomes HR's job to keep the employees down.
It is this simplistic kind of attitude that makes switching employers the only way to appreciably increase your salary. HR is short-sighted, no doubt about it.
My last experience with a corporate HR group was when I "volunteered" to take a position within the company doing some crap work for a lot of money, effectively $100/hr. They completely vetoed it even though the manager was desperate for someone and they still would have made a decent profit.
Well, I went independent and billed $135/hr for pretty much the same stuff and the company lost money on the deal, but they were contractually obligated to provide the service and I was the only game in town (or actually in the whole country).
HR is not your friend, but that doesn't mean you have to take it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I dunno, as an intel employee, I'm pretty excited to get a free box to crack more rc5 keys with. I'm not sure what I'll do with it, but I'm certianly not turning it down on some paranoid notion that Intel will have some secret deal with whatever OEM provides the box to get my serial number. Especially since I'll just disable it's transmission in my bios (I doubt the oem will write a special bios that won't allow me to turn it off). And, yes, the employees will own their machine and intel won't have any more right to look at it's contents than the do with the machines I have now.
:). The cool thing is that in the internal faq, it says that there's a possibility that the internet access won't necessairally be dialup. They may have cable/dsl/isdn options or something... they're not sure yet. Also, you get that (kinda) neat microscope that hooks up to your (windows) box. I saw it at the store and thought, "hrmmm... that might be fun to play with".
However, I'm not one of the people that will benifit the most. Of the 70,000+ employees and reitrees Intel has, many of them work at fabs in countries where computers are much less prevalent. They say they're trying to find an internet access option for all the employees too. I think that's pretty cool.
Actually, working extra hours (at home or at work) is supposedly forbidden by intel's pollicies (yeah, that really works
The cool thing is that the site says that they can use the systems for whatever they want.
Well, fitted with the latest i820 motherboards they'll make great (if somewhat bulky) doorstops I suppose...
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
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Intel's motives, I suspect, are not entirely altruistic. Ford's weren't either, but they were a lot closer. They wanted their workers to be more computer literate to be more efficient, and in the process allow them to acquire skills that many of them don't have the ability to practice otherwise. In that sense they are really doing their employees a favor, considering that probably 3/4 of them are working class, blue collar, high school graduates who probably wouldn't have a chance to learn basic computer skills otherwise. Intel, on the other hand, is using this as a ploy, an overpublicized signing bonus intended to steal away scarce tech workers from other firms. It's not a bad thing, but come on - how many people working at Intel don't already have a Pentium 3 or something else, and how many of those don't know how to use it? You're getting into fractions of a percent here. I'm not knocking the program, but you should try to avoid piling on the felicitations - I think Intel's motives are a lot more transparent that Ford's were.
--
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
I got this form somebody that works at Intel. At the time the program is launched, a standard configuration will consist of a performance PC with a Pentium® III processor 677 MHz, 128 MB RD RAM, 20 GB hard drive, 48X CD-ROM, floppy drive, Intel® Create & Share? camera pack, USB speakers and soundcard, graphics adapter, modem, keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, and software. Each employee also will receive an Intel®Play? computer-enhanced toy. And each employee will receive Internet access. Guess they need to do something with all those extra i820's and RDRAM..........
Wow, I enjoy /. as much as the next guy, but you guys need to get out more. As an employee of Intel, it's highly amusing to read all the "real" reasons Intel is giving away PC's. Just to clairify a few points. 1) there will be support, no it probably won't be shipping w/Linux. those of us who run Linux, or my personal preference FreeBSD, (gods' OS of choice; flame on! :) will be free to do so. 2) it will be "ours" not "loaned". I'll no doubt use mine to pour grits down my pants or whatever the trendy blather on /. at the time is. 3) it will come with some ISP, printer, video conference device, and can be customized as long as the employee pays the difference... We don't know the details yet. I doubt however that we'll be able to upgrade to a "real" processor such as the Athlon, but I'm sure we'll see 50 messages chuckling about that.. :)It will be a PIII, and sadly not a Willamette, If you want to talk about a screaming CPU look no further, unless you post on /., and then you'll no doubt dis it, cuz we're all cool here.. Now, as to some of the assumptions... - Why? uh, maybe it's a tight job market, and we want to attract and retain good employees? Maybe not everyone of the 70K who work there are high grade engineers who have millions in options to burn freely, and something like a $2500 system is really appreciated?!? Maybe we force all other high tech firms to do this, and we sell more product! Oh, how evil! Maybe Andy & Craig have installed secret SW to monitor and track what porn all the employees download, and track those who read alt.sex.hamster.love? I'm sure they and the rest of Intel "management" have nothing better to do than monitor their employees 24x7. I always wondered who trained that racoon to knock over my trash can on Tuesdays and eat the foodstuffs, thanks to /., now I know, Intel's secret police... Here's a clue. what we do outside of work is our own thing. another thing. Intel's a high tech company, like the other thousands out there. Some of the people who work there are great, some aren't. Some are great managers, some suck. Some of the benefits are super, some of the rules aren't fun. I've worked in many high tech firms, before coming to Intel 3 years ago. I'm actually having a blast. Yes we work hard, no it doesn't mean we're always working 60 or 70 hour weeks. Unlike everyone who posts at /., we sometimes get behind schedule, and have to put in some serious time at the end of the project. I've never had to do that any other place I've done SW development... yea. Someday I'm hoping we get to CMM level 5, so all our projects will be scheduled down to the day... please do keep up the posts, they really are quite fun. thanks!
I don't go digging up people's emails myself, so I don't know what most isps do, but I do know that businesses often keep backups of everything going back a long time. IIRC, that's how the Microsoft memos got unearthed. They were deleted off the senders' and recipients' computers (and off the mail servers), but were still recoverable from the server backups. (I would be amazed if most isps didn't keep nightly backups on tape or something for a few weeks, at least, but I don't know so I can't say.)
In any event, the point is that unless you KNOW for sure that there isn't a backup or other record of anything anywhere on an unpredictable chain of computers, you can't say that your mail is unrecoverable. It's always going to hinge on a computer you can't control and probably don't know the configuration of. It's certainly totally naive to think that if I do my best to nuke the mail off my hard drive, that means nobody can read it anymore.
-jacob
No, that wasn't what happened at all.
Northwest was suing individuals believed to have coordinated an illegal work action (sick-in). They obtained a warrant to check for material of their opponents in the suit.
Furthermore, Northwest was not allowed to look at the computers. An independent accounting firm was brought in to find the material covered, and turn over nothing else.