Micron Technologies named president and COO Mark Durcan as its new CEO following the death of former CEO Steve Appleton in a single-engine Lencair plane crash Friday. Appleton, an experienced stunt pilot, died when the plane he was piloting banked unexpectedly after takeoff and then crashed.
The circumstances of Appleton’s death have led to numerous analogies between his love for high-risk activities like stunt flying and his talent for the high-risk business of producing dynamic random access memory semiconductors. Micron and other memory chip makers have been losing money in the face of weaker demand from PC makers. But analysts believe that in addition to a tolerance for risk, Appleton possessed the discipline needed to build a bench of solid managers beneath him, who now stand ready to carry on Micron’s strategy. “Mark does have a different style from Steve, but I think he will continue the efforts to consolidate the industry and push Micron into more mobile applications,” says analyst Mike Howard, who follows Micron for IHS iSuppli. Durcan, who was planning to retire this year, has now put those plans aside in order to focus on his new job as CEO.
Moving into the fast-growing market for tablets and smartphones is of course a big part of Micron’s strategy. Less than two months ago, Micron (NYSE: MU) and Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) announced that their joint development venture, IM Flash Technologies, has produced the world’s first 20 nanometer, 128 gigabit, multilevel-cell device. The companies say it can store 1 terabyte of data in a single fingertip-size package, making it ideal for smartphones.
The close cooperation between the two companies has led to previous speculation on Wall Street that Micron could be Intel’s next acquisition target. Analyst Krishna Shankar (formerly of ThinkEquity) said that Micron could see higher margins from its memory business if it were part of Intel and thus able to participate in Intel’s platform solutions. And adding DRAM and NAND to its platforms in-house could cut costs for Intel.
Appleton was recently quoted as saying that consolidation in the semiconductor industry was inevitable, but it is unclear whether he was involved in merger talks with Intel or any other companies. Japan’s struggling Elpida Memory has been a rumored Micron acquisition target this year.
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