Intel Breaks Up Its Channel Team

The four departing executives are Nick Davison, Intel's director of North American channel sales; Shirley Turner, director of North American channel marketing; Mike Steward, manager of North American channel marketing programs & initiatives; and an unnamed sales manager, one of the sources said.

"They offered us a great voluntary separation package and I realized it might be time to do something else," said one of the executives who accepted the offer. "We are doing this on our own terms," added the executive, who said all four came to their decisions independently and did not know the others were considering severance offers from Intel.

Steve Dallman remains a vice president in Intel's Sales and Marketing Group and the general manager of its Worldwide Reseller Channel Organization. Eric Thompson, currently a North American channel marketing manager, will assume the acting role of North American channel chief until Greg Pearson, group president of Intel Americas, returns from a trip to Brazil to help sort out new executive assignments, the source who is leaving Intel said.

All four executives will remain in their roles through the Intel Solutions Summit partner conference being held April 7-9 in Las Vegas so that a smooth transition is made to the new management team, the source said.

One executive at a top Intel whitebox partner said that in a consolidating market it wasn't surprising that the chip giant was trimming down its channel management team and engaging in what appears to be a youth movement.

"In this economy, you need to have more than just old-time relationships in your channel," said the partner, who asked not to be named. He characterized Thompson, who he said would be directly replacing Davison, as "first-rate."

Intel downsized 2,000 employees in the final quarter of last year, bringing its head count down to roughly 86,000 worldwide.

One channel observer described the break-up of Intel's channel team as "rare indeed for this many high-level channel executives to depart simultaneously and it will no doubt cause some disruption no matter how carefully planned or orchestrated."

"But the fact that Intel has its partner conference at this time is actually good because they can face partner concerns head on and also have a chance to roll out new managers, whether they are permanent or in acting roles," he said.

Davison recently accepted a Channel Champions award for Intel at Everything Channel's Xchange Solution Provider conference in Los Angeles. Turner is also a familiar face at Xchange and other industry events, where she has been known to break out into song on stage during briefings. A source at Intel said she would likely seek another role in the IT channel after her separation agreement with Intel allows her to do so.

Meanwhile, Intel's chief x86 processor rival Advanced Micro Devices, denied a report that it was conducting downsizing of its own.

"AMD confirms that it has not had a reduction in force," said an AMD spokesperson Thursday, according to BetaNews. It was reported by The Inquirer on Wednesday that the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based chip maker was handing out pink slips to 5 percent of its workforce.