Intel’s actions, which appear to have included layoffs and early retirement packages, impacted channel-facing roles and other positions within Intel’s global sales organization.
In the nearly 30 years that Dominic Daninger has worked for Nor-Tech, he could always remember the Midwestern systems integrator having access to an Intel sales representative to handle matters like CPU samples and competitive bids.
But that changed over the summer when Intel laid off the sales account manager who covered his Burnsville, Minn.-based company and cut jobs for an unknown number of other channel-facing roles in a move the chipmaker described as “targeted actions.”
[Related: Analysis: AMD Puts Channel Pressure On Intel As Both Firms Revamp Partner Programs]
It wasn’t new for Nor-Tech to part ways with an Intel rep, but what is different this time is how the 15-person company has gone without one for more than three months, not knowing if and when the systems integrator, which has shipped hundreds of high-performance computing and AI clusters over the years, will be assigned a replacement.
“We probably had at least 10 different reps over the years, and we’d always know the transition was coming, and I don’t remember a gap like this at all previously,” said Daninger, who is vice president of engineering at Nor-Tech.
The channel-related job cuts, which have not been previously reported, happened not long before Intel disclosed its plan in July to cut jobs in the Data Center Group.
While Nor-Tech was the only channel partner to lose its Intel rep without an apparent replacement that CRN could identify, the channel-related reorganization had some level of impact on other partners, including a previous Nvidia Partner Network award winner, as well as two distributors in the U.S., according to executives at the three companies. Two distribution executives who spoke with CRN found silver linings with the changes.
A LinkedIn post by one laid-off Intel account manager indicated that some global systems integrators, including Wipro, may have experienced turnover in Intel representation too.
Intel has said that it has a vast ecosystem of partners of different types that includes more than 100,000 companies, but it does not provide a breakdown for how many systems integrators, value-added resellers and other kinds of solution providers it works with.
The recent job cuts, which appear to have included layoffs and early retirement packages, happened after Intel slashed thousands of positions over the previous two years, which had a significant impact on channel-facing roles and other positions within Intel’s global sales organization. Renamed several months ago to the Sales Management Group, the division was appointed a new leader, former Marvell executive Dean Jarnac, in August by Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan.
Intel: Job Cuts Were ‘Targeted;’ Company ‘Remains Very Committed’ To Channel
An Intel spokesperson confirmed the job cuts to CRN but declined to say how many channel-facing roles were impacted or how many channel partners lost sales coverage from an Intel rep. The spokesperson described the job cuts as “targeted actions” and said the company is “actively working” to “ensure partners have the support they need to succeed.”
The spokesperson said the move fell in line with Tan’s push for Intel to become a leaner and faster-moving company, which was the underlying reason that drove the CEO to cut the chipmaker’s workforce by 15 percent last year.
“As part of Intel’s broader strategy to become a more focused and efficient company, we continually assess our workforce to ensure priorities and resources are appropriately aligned,” the Intel spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “While these targeted actions are difficult, they help ensure we have the right roles and skills in place to drive greater simplicity, speed and collaboration across our business.”
The Intel spokesperson added that “Intel remains very committed to its channel and partner ecosystem,” reiterating previous statements the chipmaker has made.
“Lip-Bu Tan is driving a new culture and a commitment to excellence across the company, and we are actively working to strengthen engagement, improve responsiveness and ensure partners have the support they need to succeed,” the spokesperson said.
Intel Channel Job Cuts Impacted Partners Big And Small
While CRN was unable to pinpoint how many channel-facing roles were impacted by Intel’s job cuts in June, three impacted U.S. employees were identified on LinkedIn, with one of them indicating that his entire team was subject to a companywide reorganization.
CRN verified that person, a sales account manager, as the laid-off Intel rep for Nor-Tech and another Intel partner, International Computer Concepts. He said in a late July LinkedIn post that his job was “eliminated as part of a companywide reorganization” and that this extended to an unspecified number of co-workers.
“Even though our team [was] consistently overperforming, our entire group was impacted,” wrote the laid-off sales account manager, who declined to comment to CRN.
Richard Rudometkin, vice president of global sales at International Computer Concepts, told CRN in August that while his company of nearly 100 employees has been assigned a new Intel rep, turnover like this always comes with some level of friction.
“We’re starting from scratch with whoever the new person is. If they are not familiar with who we are and what the channel is, it’s kind of a learning curve,” said Rudometkin, whose Northbrook, Ill.-based company won an Nvidia partner award in 2024 and was ranked No. 1 on CRN’s 2025 Fast Growth 150.
Marty Bauerlein, chief consumer and commercial officer at Harrisburg, Pa.-based distribution giant D&H Distributing, told CRN that his company’s Intel distribution sales manager accepted an early retirement package in June after working at the chipmaker for 33 years.
However, he added, his company has been pleased with the sales manager’s replacement, an account executive who has worked at Intel for over 25 years.
“We’ve hit the ground running, and the relationship is the best it’s ever been—and that’s true. My team is very happy with the change,” Bauerlein said.
Separately, a global account manager who was with Intel for 26 years and led “global AI and technology” go-to-market with global systems integrators such as Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services said in a late June LinkedIn post that he was leaving the chipmaker “as part of a broader organizational restructuring.”
Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and the laid-off global account manager who worked with them through Intel did not respond to requests for comment.
Another Distributor Loses Technical Resource But Gains Higher-Up Access
Kent Tibbils, vice president of marketing at Fremont, Calif.-based distributor ASI, told CRN that an Intel partner development manager who provided product training for his company’s channel customers were among those impacted by the job cuts.
The partner development manager, who worked at Intel for 30 years, was among the three channel-facing employees CRN verified on LinkedIn. The person in question did not respond to a request for comment.
Tibbils said Intel hasn’t provided someone to replace the responsibilities of the laid-off partner development manager, which he considered an important role for helping solution providers understand Intel’s products and technologies.
“It’s a key differentiator for the channel being able to explain, ‘OK, here’s what these products can do, and this is what this new feature can add for your business,’” he said.
However, Tibbils said he found a silver lining with Intel providing access to higher-up people within the chipmaker for a recent event with about 20 of ASI’s key channel customers.
“We were able to have some of the [vice presidents] that are responsible for specific product lines at Intel come in and meet with our customers and talk to them and explain, ‘Here’s our vision, here’s what we see in the industry, here’s where Intel’s going,” he said.
Given the IT industry’s intense focus on AI, Tibbils said these types of “business discussions are probably more or at least as important as product discussions.”
Nevertheless, Tibbils sees the loss of an Intel employee who could address the more technical aspects of the chipmaker’s products for the channel as an issue.
“It’s been a little bit of a challenge for certain product lines to really identify, ‘OK, who’s that technical person or product person that we can lean on for monthly or quarterly trainings on what’s going on with the products?’” he said.
Nor-Tech’s Intel Representation Remains In Limbo
Nor-Tech is far from the first solution provider to lose coverage by an Intel representative. But what makes this instance notable is that the systems integrator doesn’t know if Intel intends to assign sales coverage to one of its authorized distributors instead of assigning someone new.
That’s because over the past several years, Intel has increasingly relied on authorized distributors to provide Intel-related sales and support resources for many channel partners, particularly but not exclusively those on the smaller side.
Intel did not address whether channel partners like Nor-Tech that lost their Intel rep would be moved to the distributor-led coverage model.
Tibbils—whose company, ASI, is an authorized Intel distributor—said Intel typically contacts distributors to inform them when it cuts sales coverage of certain channel partners so that they can step in and fill the gap.
“[Intel gets] the POS [point-of-sale data] from every distributor, so they know Nor-Tech. They know who Nor-Tech buys from as a distributor, so they could very easily go to that distributor and say, ‘Hey, this is what we did, and Nor-Tech’s going to need your help, and we’re going to need your help, and so let’s get in there and figure it out,’” he said.
Nor-Tech Exec Sees More Reasons To Go With AMD
Nor-Tech’s Daninger said having an Intel representative in the past typically came with two benefits that could help the chipmaker against its rivals: access to product samples and competitive pricing.
The first benefit, according to the executive, allows Nor-Tech to set up product demonstrations for customers to help them make purchase decisions. It’s on this front where Daninger said he continues to get support from Intel’s x86 rival, AMD.
“They’ve been good about sampling parts out so we can keep our demos going, and that lands customers,” he said.
With Nor-Tech currently lacking any Intel representation, Daninger said this could hurt his company’s ability to get competitive pricing from the chipmaker in cases when a customer is considering a server cluster configuration featuring AMD CPUs.
Daninger said Nor-Tech typically exercised these opportunities, known as “meet comp” in industry parlance, about three to four times a year with Intel, adding that such opportunities could represent “multiple hundreds” of CPUs.
“There’s no meet comp route we’re aware of at this point,” he said.
But even without access to those resources from Intel, the Nor-Tech executive said he has been seeing “more and more reasons to go with AMD,” especially because of how competitive the chip designer has become from a price-performance perspective.
“I’d have to say that oftentimes AMD is making more sense to go with [on] some of these projects. We’ve got some contact there, and right now with Intel, it’s just disappeared. That may change, but we haven’t seen a change yet,” he said.
