- Yahoo has lost another key executive, but may be gaining some, if reports of a major reorganisation as early as this week prove correct. The shakeup could be an early signal from new chief executive Carol Bartz that she is moving swiftly to implement a more top-down management style. Neeraj Khemlani, the departing head of Yahoo’s News and Information Division, will join Hearst Corporation as a vice president and a special assistant on digital strategy.
- Rambus, the memory-chip technology company, won an important victory in the highest US court. The Supreme Court’s judges declined to rule in favour of the Federal Trade Commission, which has been alleging Rambus schemed to get standards adopted for which it only later revealed its own patented technology – enabling it to extract substantial royalties from memory chip makers.
- The only US maker of DRAM chips, Micron, will stop manufacturing in its hometown of Boise, Idaho and cut 2,000 jobs. Micron, faced with a crowded field for its low-margin chips, is said to be working towards a partnership with Taiwanese rivals.
- Hitachi’s hard drive division has acquired Silicon Valley’s Fabrik for an undisclosed sum. Fabrik will form the core of the San Jose company’s new external storage business. Fabrik CEO Mike Cordano, an industry veteran formerly with Maxtor, is joining Hitachi’s executive team. When we first wrote about Fabrik in 2007, it had just secured $25m in fourth-round VC funding from 3i and ComVentures, so the sale could represent a good exit for Fabrik’s investors, who also included Intel Capital.
