ShadowRAM: December 10, 2007

A VIRTUAL BONANZA FOR TUCCI
•extension

In a "Dear Joe" letter outlining the details of the contract extension, EMC director David Strohm also told Tucci that the deal means "You will continue to work with the board of directors on the management succession development program that is currently under way."

So while the Hopkinton, Mass.-based company is agreeing to pay Tucci for three more years, it has made it clear it wants to get hopping on picking his replacement.

Considering that a three-year extension is all the Yankees would give relief pitcher Mariano Rivera, though, it's not too shabby for Tucci.

WHISPERS IN MOTION: RUIZ ON THE HOT SEAT?
• AMD is losing money, can't get its processors to ramp in volume on time, left the channel hanging last year with supply that couldn't be met and now it gets worse. Last week, word began filtering out regarding problems with AMD's quad-core Barcelona processor. While AMD, Sunnyvale, Calif., had initially said it would ramp the chip in volume by mid-fourth quarter, now it won't commit to anything in volume for the channel until the middle of the first quarter next year.

The company recently invested in a huge raise and seat on the board of directors for AMD President Dirk Meyer, and CEO Hector Ruiz has been the toast of the anti-Intel world for years. But the latest set of mishaps finally has set the whispers in motion, according to our sources, and the talk in Silicon Valley isn't if, but when, big changes will happen at the top of the food chain. Is Jerry Sanders looking at Michael Dell's second chapter as CEO and thinking, "Hmmmm...?" Not sure. But what is sure is that AMD can't keep letting the channel twist in the wind and it certainly can't keep losing money.

SEEN AND HEARD
• Here's another one for your lexicon: "malvertising." According to an item posted last week by William Salusky of the SANS Internet Storm Center, it's not pretty. "Malvertising [malicious advertising] is a reasonably fresh take on an online criminal methodology that appears focused on the installation of unwanted or outright malicious software through the use of Internet advertising media networks, exchanges and other user-supplied content publishing services common to the social networking space." Salusky said new tools are being developed throughout the security researcher community to better pinpoint the bad and evil code.

• Hewlett-Packard meets with Wall Street analysts this week in New York. It's an annual ritual in this industry as it gets close to holiday shopping season. Big meetings and press conferences in Manhattan are scheduled right after the Rockefeller Center tree-lighting ceremony. Wonder why that is? Anyway, we'll be paying attention to what HP's Mark Hurd says this week. Rival Anne Mulcahy of Xerox recently said her company had no interest in Lexmark. Will some brave, financial analyst ask Hurd the same question?