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MPC Computers Shutting Down
davidphogan74 writes "MPC Computers (formerly Micron's computer division) notified the Idaho Department of Labor in a letter on 12/29/2008 that it would terminate its remaining employees. The company had been operating under the protection of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy since November, after it laid off 200 employees in October. MPC said 147 employees would be terminated immediately and 51 would be retained while the company liquidates its assets. Last year, MPC bought the professional business unit of PC company Gateway, which itself had been bought by Acer earlier that year. MPC had sold business technology hardware to mid-sized business, government agencies, and education organizations since 1991."
Living in Boise, ID, maybe I can shed some light on this.
MPC has been steadily going downhill for a couple of years. I didn't work for MPC, but I had several customers who did. The gossip from them is a tale of outsourcing gone bad. MPC used to assemble PC's here in Idaho. A couple years ago, they outsourced most of the manufacturing overseas. Instead of building a new factory here, they built in China. All went well for awhile, then the quality started to slip. Companies stopped ordering. There wasn't enough money left to bring the manufacturing back to the states. Finally, the high oil prices of last year destroyed the profit margin they were making by outsourcing the manufacturing.
They have been in a death spiral ever since. They hoped to fix it by declaring Chapter 11 a couple months ago but that obviously didn't work.
*Disclaimer:
Please be aware that all my information is third hand and may not reflect other peoples experiences.