Intel shocked its employees this week by announcing the company's merger with Apple Computer Inc., a combination with the potential to transform computing.
Thousands of Intel employees in Oregon and around the world got the startling news when they arrived at work Thursday and found the chip maker had posted a video describing the deal on its internal computer network.
The merged company would be called Mactel, workers learned. It would blend the slogans of Apple ("Think Different") and Intel ("Leap Ahead") into a single motto: "Leap Different."
Employees were shown a revamped cleanroom bunny suit, long the chip maker's hallmark, radically modified to incorporate Apple chief executive Steve Jobs' trademark black turtleneck.
They were told Mactel was poised to "grow organically": Future acquisitions of fruity firms might include the company that makes the BlackBerry e-mail device, or perhaps the British wireless phone giant Orange S.A.
It was all, of course, an April Fool's joke.
Pranksters in Intel's communications department were capitalizing on the flood of publicity the companies generated this year when Apple introduced the first Macintosh computers to use Intel chips.
Intel's been pulling April Fool's pranks on its employees for at least 15 years, according to company spokesman Chuck Mulloy. The elaborate spoofs used to show up in the company newsletter but now incorporate online video and the trappings of the Internet age.
More than a few workers were fooled by Thursday's announcement, Mulloy said, if only for a moment or two.
"Initially it comes across as credible," he said between chuckles. "If you watched it for more than three or four minutes, you would become suspicious."
This is from the Oregonian:
http://www.oregonlive.com/business/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/business/114386372417080.xml&coll=7
