In technology, teams are tops. And for the most innovative companies, U.S.-only teams are old hat. Global teams are the rage. Consider the following:

In Penang, Intel taps the talents of top Malaysian engineers, not only by hiring them as employees but also by helping them launch their own businesses-and then hiring the new firms as contractors who at times work alongside Intel's own employees.Engineers from Colorado, Australia, Germany, India and Japan converge on a hotel in trendy Los Gatos, Calif. This isn't a vacation but a rare face-off between members of a Hewlett-Packard software team. In Gemenos, France, a half-dozen French engineers at Gemplus, a leading supplier of smart cards, are managed by an American who speaks only enough French to converse with a waiter. His counterpart at Gemplus' research lab in Redwood City, Calif., is a Frenchman who manages a group of Americans.