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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."
They only appealed to an elitist community.
I for one believe that firing the employees in question would be enough, instead of termination. Perhaps it'd even be cheaper choice.
Oh, I bet it's George Bush fault too!
Just like the lack of coffe in the machine this morning :/
English is not my first language. Corrections and suggestions are welcome.
I am guessing price. "Cheap" is the only market that is really growing right now. You would see a bigger hit with HP and IBM if they hadn't already addicted everyone to services...
I, for one, happen to be rather pleased that MPC bit the dust: We hired one of their former employees back in November, and he has proven to be a great addition to our (currently growing, amazingly) company.
It could be worse. The salesman for MAD Computer sold us a bunch of systems after the company had shut down. He didn't tell anyone, just continued to sell product on hand.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
We used MPC in a higher-ed setting quite consistently over Dell since they had better deals, more configuration options, and USA tech support.
Once they purchased Gateway however the service was horrible. Installing XP on a RAID-enabled SATA controller required the RAID drivers which Gateway/MPC techs refused to send to us. It took 10 minutes for them to find the system in the database and over an hour for one of their techs to scour their website for the proper driver.
MPC's only original 2 flaws were their oddly-interfaced website and their billing. You know how you get configuration errors if you have more cards than PCI slots? Well, their "default" configurations would always have a configuration error right off the bat. Things like that, plus poorly-updated tracking info made it useless.
And then their billing...I moved to a different department and therefore had a new purchasing card issued to me (and the old one canceled). 3 Months after a PC purchase I received a threatening e-mail from their accounts Receivable stating that the payment on the system was denied and that we'd better pay up now or go to court. A quick e-mail and a call with the new card number resolved things quickly, but waiting 3 months to bill for a system is a little odd.
MPC had a good thing going right up to that point (for the most part anyhow). The Gateway curse continues.
"This food is problematic."
And that's why Apple is doing so well. Oh, wait...
Lemmings are silly; dinosaurs are extinct.
They didn't even notify their customers. We had ordered hundreds of PCs (all-in-ones) for a new South Tower at our hospital and they didn't even have the courtesy to give is a head up! Just Plain rude!
MPC made all PC's that had "Micron" written on them. That's because the "M" stood for "Micron."
"Micron Technology" (the semiconductor manufacturer) created MPC to handle the PC business aspect.
I worked for Micron for a while. It has a somewhat confusing history. I was there in the mid-late 90's when it was called Micron Electronics. It was tethered to Micron Tech at that time (the memory maker). Micron Tech in hindsight did well to spin off Micron Electronics (MPC) in 2001.
Micron Electronics had previously acquired ZEOS computers along with a small groups of engineers from a little town in Minnesota that had expertise in chip design, specifically north bridge chips. It was these engineers that I worked with.
It was no secret that their strategy was to create performance/gaming PCs. They did that by going up against the Intels, VIAs, and SiSs in creating the fastest northbridge ICs for a given CPU. They also designed their own motherboards and extended the commercially-obtained BIOS to take advantage of features in their chipsets.
Even though they were based in Nampa, Idaho, they had significant operations in Minnesota (in fact all design was in Roseville, MN). Nampa had a larger workforce, but it was primarily production.
I'm somewhat sad that they folded, though I'll admit I haven't followed them for a while. My thoughts are that Dell/Alienware and the DIY market took away the high-end customers. Micron (Electronics) attempted to get into servers with the purchase of NetFrame in the 1997 timeframe. I don't think they ever got any real traction with those products, though.
R.I.P. ZEOS/Micron Electronics/Micron PC
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.
Apple is doing well.
I Keed. I Keed, I love my MBP.
Oh, I bet it's George Bush fault too!
Just like the lack of coffe in the machine this morning :/
Indeed! Unfortunately, neither your coffee machine nor Micron qualified for bailout money. :(
Boot Windows, Linux, and ESX over the network for free.
Maybe. For me, the appeal was a rock solid office machine. I still have a Pentium II server I put in place for a business about 10 years ago, running Novell 3.1. They got over 7 years of service from that machine without issue. Sure, had to replace a hard drive but that's to be expected. I booted it up about a month ago to retrieve some data from it and it still runs just fine. They also got 5-7 years out of the desktops. The only reason they were retired is that technology had just progressed so much and Novell didn't have the applications that Windows offered at the server level. I still have these businesses as my clients, in part because I put in solid equipment that lasted for as long as they wanted it. I'm sorry to see Micron go....
In my opinion the whole spiral started with Joel Kocher. When I started employment at MPC (was called MicronPC.com at the time) in early '00, they had a rock solid product, and were in the midst of transitioning to a PC and Internet hosting company. Kocher introduced a free bare-bones PC with a long-term Internet service contract.
Kocher was convinced the PC was dead and that hosting was the way to go. Up to that point Micron PC was known as the Cadillac of PCs, using good quality parts, a good non-bloatware system load, etc. Once this piece of cheapest-possible junk was introduced, the reputation of the company, as well as the internal focus on quality went out the window. All of the company effort was focused on expanding the hosting business at the expense of the hardware side of the business.
After a while Kocher spun off Hostpro and left the PC manufacturing side of the business to die. It was picked up by an investment group and was never able to fully recover. While I can't confirm it, rumor stated that the company could have turned around but the investment company siphoned off every cent of profit rather than re-investing it back into the business for long-term growth. Coupled with leadership that (I feel) were more interested in short-term balance sheets than long term success doomed the company to failure.
I was laid off in July of '06, and haven't looked back. I made it through more layoffs than I could count and the stress of wondering if I'd have a job every couple of months was horrible. The layoff that finally caught me was more of a relief than a concern. I should have looked for something else far prior to that but I was convinced the company could recover and then I'd be in a good position for advancement.
The way I see it the company has been floating for the last 6+ years, and someone finally decided to hit the flush handle. I have quite a few friends that were still employed there that have lost their jobs in the last month. Its a tough job market right now and this isn't going to make it any easier.