Changing of the guard
A number of sites, with the Wall Street Journal probably the first, are reporting that Pat Gelsinger (pictured), Intel's senior VP and GM of its biggest business group - the digital enterprise group - is going to leave the company after 30 years and join storage giant EMC to run its storage products operation.
At first glance this seems like a surprising move for Gelsinger as he is a typical Intel lifer and would be moving to a similar level of seniority in a much smaller company. We can only assume that he's being groomed for the top spot at EMC and/or is being offered a ton of stock.
The New York Times expands on the news with the expectation that the move will precipitate wholesale management changes at Intel. Commercial boss Sean Maloney has long been touted as the successor to current Intel CEO Paul Otellini. Gelsinger will have had his eye on the top spot, so the prospect of losing out to Maloney may well have also influenced his decision.
Maloney is expected to accumulate even more power, according to the NYT, taking on responsibility for all of Intel's chip businesses. Meanwhile Dadi Perlmutter is expected to head-up the engineering for all chip divisions.
There don't appear to be any official confirmations of this move but Intel is expected to say something today and the WSJ reckons current EMC CEO, who will remain in place for the next three years, said Gelsinger is a possible replacement for him.
