I can't say that I am surprised at the news of
RF Micro Devices merging with
TriQuint given
that I know from when I worked there that the RFMD management wanted to develop a line of general purpose and special
purpose RFIC products that are designed into a wide array of products - not just cellphones and WiFi. That is not
to say RFMD had not made progress in doing it independently; they had. This merger with TriQuint, though, will instantly
give them an incredibly broad market share for RF communications devices.
Official
press releases from both companies mention that this is considered an equal merger, with neither company effectively
'buying out' the other. The reorganization will be done on a mutually equitable basis with a whole new company name
and shared leadership. It does not mention how the merger will affect employee numbers (reduction in force, layoff,
right-sizing, etc.), but hopefully any change in workforce size will be positive. I still know a lot of great people
at RFMD.
"NewCo" is the name reported in the press releases of both companies. No, that is not the actual new name, but
is a commonly used generic placeholder for an as-yet-to-be-named corporation. A new logo will be needed as well (too
bad since RFMD just went to a lot of expense to redesign theirs last year). Along those lines, I did a little work
to help them come up with a new name.
The first thing I did was plug "rfmdtriquint" into an online anagram creator to see what it could come up with.
It generated "Drift Qi Mr. Tun" and "Drift Qi Mr. Nut." "Qi" is "the circulating life force whose existence and properties
are the basis of much Chinese philosophy and medicine." Some touchy-feely kumbaya types might swoon over such a name,
but it probably won't fly with engineers (which I know many of the top brass at RFMD are).
Next, I tried "rfmicrodevicestriquint" and got "Corrective Nudism Rift Qi." Well, at least that one is hilarious,
but still no good in the corporate world. Here are a few others for the chieftains to consider:
Convicted Squirmier Rift Necrotic Drive Firm Quits Queer Indicts Victor Firm
(oooh, drifting toward a dangerous place, better stop here)
Those and the 5,000 others all sound more like headlines than company names, so the anagram approach is not going
to work.
Let us try another approach. The compound name TriQuint implies three quints. A quint is a sequence of five cards
of the same suit. A run of ace, king, queen, jack, and ten is a quint major and one of jack, ten, nine, eight, and
seven a quint minor. Quint is also a numerical prefix signifying five of something, as in quintuplets being five children
being born to the same mother at the same time (approximately). So, a triquint could be three fives (555), 3 x 5 (15),
a 3 and a 5 in sequence (35). A look at the About
page on TriQuint's website reveals that the name comes from the III-V compound of gallium and arsenic on the periodic
table (gallium arsenide, GaAs) - pretty clever, actually.
RFMD began life as RF Micro Devices, but sometime in the mid 2000s the company decided to officially rename the
company to RFMD, since that is the way most people referred to it. There was a big effort to remove references to
RF Micro Devices and use only RFMD, but during that time even the internal company documents mixed the titles. At
this point it really doesn't matter, I suppose. RF, of course, stands for "radio frequency."
Knowing all that, what, then, might be a really good new name for the to-be-merged RFMD and TriQuint?
How about "GaAs MD" as in "Web MD," implying physician-like mastery of semiconductor physics? No? OK, do you like,
"GaAs Pipeline," suggesting an abundant, free-flowing supply of revenue generation? "Jumpin' Jack Flash," ... is a
GaAs, GaAs, GaAs? "Noble GaAs?" OK, I give up. Maybe you have a good suggestion for them. My names might be dumb,
but they're all still better than Agilent's new T&M spinoff name of "Keysight Technologies."
How about a new company slogan? I still LMAO and ROFL when I think about the one offered by an RFMD group manager
one day at a meeting: "Our GaAs Doesn't Stink!"
From the press releases: "...today's transaction... is intended to qualify as a tax-free reorganization..." I wonder
what that's all about? Are some mergers taxed and others not?
See my Analog Devices and Hittite
Microwave merger announcement.
Update: The new name is formally
Qorvo. "Qorvo (pronounced kor-vo). According to the company, 'Qorvo' is a combination of 'chorus'
(a group of people working in unison), 'core' (origin, center
of technology), and 'vo' (voyage or travel). "
Posted February 24, 2014
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