Tech Check
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- Apple Comes to AT&T's Rescue
- My Top 10 Tech Toys for the Holidays
- iPhone a Better Gaming Platform Than Android?
- Dell Has Some Explaining to Do
- Dell May Start to Show Some Promise
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Intel's Andy Bryant Offers An Explanation
- Apple's Global Retail Invasion
- Intel Settles; AMD Settles the Score
MOST SHARED
- The 'Real' Jobless Rate: 17.5% Of Workers Are Unemployed
- Why Amazon Rules Retail
- Paul: Audit the Fed
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- JAL Slides to Record Low on Bankruptcy Jitters
- Prepare For Large Decline In Stocks, Next Year?
- The Social Media Gaming Threat
- Wave of Debt Payments Facing US Government
- Holiday Travel Outlook
- Gold Will Collapse Like Oil Did in 2008: Charts
- Can Murdoch Help Bing Challenge Google and Shift the Content Equation?
- HP's Mark Hurd
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- 9 Stocks That Play Rising Water Costs: Strategists
- Weis' Deal Likely Won't Change Big Money Contracts
- Gold Prices Can Double in 3 Years: Portfolio Manager
- Nov. 23: Unusual Volume Leaders
- Help Wanted—Please Run $4 Billion University
- Apple Comes to AT&T's Rescue
- Obama says Boosting US Jobs is Top Priority
- More Consumers Giving 'Black Friday' the Cold Shoulder
- Prepare For Large Decline In Stocks, Next Year?
- Hewlett-Packard Earnings Rise, Match Guidance
- HP Comes in As Expected; Is It Time to Buy?
- Cramer: What Monday’s Housing Number Really Means
- Why the Dollar Will Likely Stay Weak for Some Time
- Bear, Lehman Execs Weren't Wiped Out by Crisis: Study
- How Real Estate Investors Skew Housing's Reality
RSS FEED
Text Size 
Silicon Valley Bureau Chief
 |
Pat Gelsinger, who was one of the company's best known execs, once running R&D and most recently the company's Digital Enterprise Group, Intel's biggest division, is leaving for the president and COO job at EMC. Gelsinger, who joined Intel in 1979, was passed over for the CEO's job which went to Paul Otellini instead, was said to be looking for a top post somewhere else since that decision. Pat's one of Intel's top assets, but his departure, despite such a long tenure at Intel [INTC
Loading...
()
], wasn't much of a surprise.
 |
Not so with Bruce Sewell, Intel's top corporate attorney.
He's leaving the company just as its appeal of a massive European Union case gain momentum. And where he's going might signal his new employer's emphasis on potential governmental legal issues: Apple [AAPL
Loading...
()
] announced earlier this morning that Sewell is coming to Cupertino.
Sewell has been leading Intel's fight with the EU, some say rather effectively, with investigators first finding the company guilty of strong-arming customers and consumers into buying Intel chips, and now on its heels because of an ombudsman discovery of prosecutorial misconduct.
TECHNOLOGY SLIDESHOWS ON CNBC.com
Intel filed its most detailed response yet to the EU's case late last week, formally appealing the $1.45 billion fine claiming simply that regulators failed to prove its case that consumers were harmed by its behavior. Look at Moore's Law and Intel seems to have a point: Chip power doubles roughly every 18 months while prices get cut in half. Sewell and team have always made the argument that Moore's Law alone should show Intel's penchant for innovation and competition in the marketplace and not predatory, anti-competitive behavior.
While Sewell lost the EU case, he has been largely effective in keeping Intel's anti-predatory message alive, and fending off various legal hand grenades lobbed by rival Advanced Micro Devices [AMD
Loading...
()
]. He was quite a busy employee with pending anti-trust cases in Japan, South Korea, the State of New York, and the Federal Trade Commission. Intel's obviously got a deep legal bench, but Sewell's departure is a key loss.
His arrival at Intel customer Apple Inc. shows Apple's new emphasis on addressing various federal investigations of its own. The FCC is examining Apple's decision to delay Google's Voice application from the Apple App Store, and another federal investigation into both Apple and Google [GOOG
Loading...
()
] that the two companies shared board members despite their competitive positions in software and smart phones. (Google CEO Eric Schmidt stepped down from Apple's board, but former Genentech [DNA
Loading...
()
] CEO Arthur Levinson still serves on both; and former Vice President Al Gore serves on Apple's board and is also a top advisor to Schmidt.)
Sewell's acumen in navigating the legal departments of various federal authorities could be enormously valuable to Apple, especially now, and his loss at Intel, particularly now, will be felt. It's a top notch hire for Apple, and timing truly is everything, for both Apple and Intel. Apple, good; Intel, not so much.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes