Intel has pretty much been running the tables for the past year on the desktop, notebooks and server fronts. During the past year, the company has stretched its legs with its 65nm Core 2 micro architecture, introduced DDR3 memory platforms for the desktop and is on the verge of releasing new 45nm processors.

At this year Intel Developer Forum, the company showed off its technologies for the future including 32nm test wafers, 45nm Nehalem processors and its 45nm Menlow platform for Ultra Mobile PCs (UMPCs) and Mobile Internet Devices (MIDs). Despite this wealth of good news on the performance and power efficiency front, Intel is still looking for more ways to stay competitive.

In an effort to further streamline its operations, the company has announced that it will cut its worldwide IT staff by up to 10 percent. "We're in a very competitive environment and need to stay agile and stay efficient," remarked Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy.

Mulloy made the comment after being questioned about the Intel Perspective Blog. The author of the blog, Intel IT Guy, went through all the nasty details of Intel's latest force reduction.

"We're in a very competitive environment and need to stay agile and stay efficient," said Intel IT Guy.

According to Intel IT Guy, the company is the process of assessing the skills of its employees and scoring their performance. Employees that don't make the cut will be "redeployed" within the company. Redeployment means that employees will have two months to find another position within the company according to Mulloy. For those that choose not to stick around for two months or don't find a new position within two months, a severance package based on years of service with Intel will be offered.

"This is primarily 'skills based' redeployment, which means we are going through a skills assessment process for each employee, scoring them, comparing scores, and then determining which skills we can most afford to lose from our individual groups. It's unpleasant, painful work, and just not going well - at least not for my team," said Intel IT Guy. "The skills assessment process is [in my opinion] meant to ensure that we're legally defensible and identifying people objectively."

Over the last three years, the company has trimmed its numbers by more than 11,000. Ten thousand workers were fired in September of 2006; an additional 1,000 were let go just months before that.