Hasta La Gadget!

Well, that didn’t take long. Even though Brian Krzanich took over the reins at Intel a mere 12 days ago, he’s already authorized his first-ever acquisition. The chip giant announced it has purchased ST-Ericsson’s satellite navigation chip business unit, which was put up for sale as a result of the latter’s dissolving joint venture. Though terms haven’t been disclosed, the sale is said to have reduced the Swiss manufacturer’s annual need for cash by around $90 million. As for the sat nav unit, it’ll become a part of Intel’s mobile chip outfit headed under smartphone chief Mike Bell. It’s all certainly in line with Krzanich’s recent promise to make Intel more competitive in mobile, which should be key in its ever growing battle with that other mobile chip architecture.

Filed under: Cellphones, Networking, Intel

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Source: AllThingsD

Turbulent times at HTC, it seems. Earlier today, we reported a pair of high-profile exits from the company — one rumored and one confirmed — and now we’re looking at another. According to CNET, the CEO of HTC Asia Lennard Hoornik has also abandoned his post, with regional CFO Chia-Lin Chang taking the reins until a formal replacement is named. Hoornik, who joined HTC from Sony Ericsson, allegedly left the Taiwanese handset maker after a two-month period of absence. Did he jump, or was he pushed? And, are these exec departures linked in any way or mere coincidence? We’ve reached out to HTC for confirmation and comment, so let’s hope there’s someone still working there to answer us.

Update: We have received the following confirmation from HTC:

“HTC can confirm that Lennard Hoornik has left HTC to pursue other interests. We appreciate his contributions to our South Asia efforts over the past year and wish him all the best. HTC’s CFO, Chialin Chang will provide interim leadership in this strategic region while we work to find a permanent solution.”

Update 2: According to a source of ours, Head of Global Digital Service Elizabeth Griffin will also be leaving HTC later this week to join Nintendo.

Filed under: Cellphones, Misc, Mobile, HTC

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Via: The Verge

Source: CNET

As Jolla gears up for the imminent unveiling of its first smartphone packing the MeeGo-inspired Sailfish OS, there’s been another shake-up at the highest level of the company. Marc Dillion will no longer be CEO as of May 6th, with a man by the name of Tomi Pienimäki taking over leadership of the company. He’s no stranger to Jolla — he’s an investor and his brother Sami is one of the company’s founders. Using nearly the same wording as when previous CEO Jussi Hurmola changed roles, Dillon will now be able to “fully concentrate on the development of Sailfish operating system” under his new title of Head of Software Development. Pienimäki’s record shows he’s all business, with experience in management, logistics, supply chains and driving growth — you know, all the fun stuff that keeps a company ticking. Following the handset reveal in May, Jolla expects to start a “pre-sales campaign” in the same month and have devices available for purchase during the second half of this year.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile

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We’ve known when current Intel CEO Paul Otellini would be stepping down for some time now, and we now finally know who will be replacing him. The chipmaker announced today that Brian Krzanich, an Intel veteran of nearly 30 years, will assume the top job at the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting on May 16th. That tenure has included a range of technical and executive jobs over the years, most recently being Chief Operating Officer, a position he was just appointed to in January of 2012. Renée James has also been elected president by Intel’s board of directors, and will take on her new role on May 16th as well. You can find the company’s official announcement after the break.

Filed under: Desktops, Laptops, Intel

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Source: Intel

Robert Kotick, who is currently the CEO of Activision Blizzard, and who was also the director/CEO of Activision from February 1991 to July 2008, has been named one of the top paid CEOs in the United States. Kotick ‘s compensation increased to $64.9 million in 2012. In a recent regulatory filing discovered by Reuters, a majority of Kotick’s huge compensation comes from stock rewards totaling $55,915,738.

The stock rewards, however, will be stretched over a vesting period of 5 years, but due to regulatory reporting rules, Activision has to report the compensation the year that it was granted. So in reality, Kotick was really paid $8.33 million last year, as well as in 2011. Kotick’s base salary was $2,006,127 last year, and he received a bonus of $2.5 million. The other half of his earnings came from other forms of compensation. According to Reuters, Kotick’s compensation is now 3 times as much as Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldsman Sachs, and twice as much as Robert Iger, CEO of Walt Disney.

While Kotick’s compensation was phenomenal, Activision didn’t experience the same type of success. Activision’s revenue and net income only increased in the single digits last year, making its growth much slower than the year prior. Activision had to lay off a total of 70 of its full-time employees in order to cut costs. 40 employees were laid off after they completed development on Activision’s upcoming Dead Pool game, and 30 employees were laid off after the company announced that it would be pulling away from licensed games.

Kotick has been placed as the second most paid public-company CEO of 2012, right behind Oracle’s CEO and founder Larry Ellison. Ellison takes the lead with $96.2 million in compensation. However, according to Bloomberg, Kotick could receive another $16 million this year if he is able to meet the highest performance targets this year for Activision Blizzard. While that’ll still put him behind Ellison, it’s still a hefty bonus.

UPDATE: Updated post to reflect Kotick’s actual compensation for 2012.

[via Reuters]

Activision CEO Robert Kotick named one of the top paid CEOs in U.S. [Update] is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
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