Adobe’s CTO is leaving the company and heading to, of all places, Apple. Kevin Lynch, who had been chief technology officer of the San Jose software company since 2008, will become vice president of technology at Apple, reporting to SVP Bob Mansfield, according to various reports.

In an interview in October 2011 during which Lynch talked about Adobe’s transition to selling software on the cloud, I asked him about the famous Flash feud between Apple and Adobe. He downplayed it. It had only been a couple of weeks since Steve Jobs’ death, and Lynch was very respectful, saying “it was not appropriate at this time to talk about Apple vs. Adobe.”

For those who need reminding, the late Apple icon in 2010 wrote a manifesto to explain why its famous iProducts did not run Flash, calling the software unreliable and not secure, among other things, and saying it was on its way out. (See Jobs Illuminates Apple’s Flash Objections.) The following year, Adobe dropped mobile support for Flash (see As Adobe Dumps Flash For Mobile, And 750 Jobs…), and it has increasingly embraced HTML5 as an alternative.

During our interview at his San Francisco office, Lynch was very diplomatic about Apple in general, pointing out that the two companies had a long history of working together. He also seemed to have a bit of a soft spot for Apple, revealing that he was a Mac developer in the 1980s, when he had started a small software firm, and that “he had great access to the team” there.

What happens to Creative Cloud, Adobe’s cloud-based productivity software that Lynch was in charge of? When I talked to Lynch in 2011, the company was making the transition to software as a service; its cloud-based software launched in November 2011. Well, it’s doing just fine. Adobe’s first-quarter results beat estimates, and it reported strong adoption of Creative Cloud, which it said now has more than 500,000 paid subscribers. “Creative Cloud is quickly becoming mainstream,” said CEO Shantanu Narayen in a statement today.

Adobe said in an emailed statement that it will not be replacing Lynch, and that ”responsibility for technology development lies with our business unit heads under the leadership of Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen.” Bryan Lamkin, SVP of corporate development at Adobe, will be in charge of tech initiatives. “We wish Kevin well in this new chapter of his career,” the statement said.

(Photo from Adobe)

After Electronic Arts announced Monday that CEO John Riccitiello was stepping down at the end of the month, the company’s shares rose nearly 3 percent in after-hours trading. Today, Wall Street’s not playing. Shares of the Redwood City video-game maker are sinking, down about 8 percent to $17.20 as of this post after a steady rise over the past few months.

EA also said it expects current-quarter financial results to miss expectations, for which Riccitiello took responsibility. Acting CEO Larry Probst, also a former EA CEO and now its executive chairman, said the time was right for a change at the top, according to the Wall Street Journal. Some point to big changes in the industry — the rise of social and mobile games from companies such as Zynga, the fall of console games, and the upcoming launch of new game consoles — and agreed with the timing of the move.

But as the Merc’s Troy Wolverton pointed out, Riccitiello’s record at EA over the past six years was mixed as he dealt with rapid changes in the industry. EA aimed high with “Star Wars: The Old Republic,” which is largely seen as a dud, and a long-awaited release of “SimCity,” which went awry. But the CEO also presided over growth of the company’s digital efforts. Speaking of mixed, “EA may have more work to do, but we believe that Mr. Riccitiello had the company on the right course,” Michael Pachter of Wedbush Securities reportedly said.  Bottom line: The upheaval brings more questions than answers to one of the world’s biggest video-game makers as it deals with continuing uncertainty in the industry.

Intel made a surprise announcement this morning: CEO Paul Otellini will be stepping down in May, and the company is starting a search both inside and outside the company for a successor.

As the Merc’s Steve Johnson points out, the Santa Clara chip maker’s previous CEOs have retired at the age of 65, so Otellini is leaving three years earlier than expected.

“It’s time to move on and transfer Intel’s helm to a new generation of leadership,” Otellini, who has been with Intel for almost 40 years and chief executive for the past eight years, said in a statement this morning.

The change at the top comes at a key time for Intel, which dominates the PC chip industry but is playing catch-up amid the rise of smartphones and other mobile devices — many of which have rival ARM’s chips inside — in what’s increasingly being called the post-PC world. The company says Otellini’s departure was his decision, with a spokesman reportedly saying the board accepted the decision “with regret.” But recent remarks by Otellini suggest he was both irritated by what has been deemed the smartphone revolution, and perhaps not fully aboard the post-PC train. (See Quoted: Intel’s Otellini on tech evolution, not revolution.)

In addition, Intel’s rise was in large part due to its longtime exclusive partnership with Microsoft. But Microsoft’s new, post-PC-era push doesn’t run exclusively on Intel, it also runs on ARM.

Otellini’s departure comes as the rise of both mobile devices and social networking have caused management shuffling or upheaval among Silicon Valley’s biggest tech companies. Hewlett-Packard, Google and Yahoo have all changed CEOs in the past couple of years. Only Apple’s change at the top last year had a different cause; Tim Cook became CEO after Steve Jobs resigned a couple of months before he died.

Intel shares are down slightly, less than 0.5 percent to $20.12, despite some analysts’ optimism that Otellini’s exit will be a chance for Intel to “do a reboot.”

Here’s some reaction to and key tidbits about the surprise departure of Steven Sinofsky — who was head of Windows at Microsoft — about three weeks after the overhauled operating system’s launch:

News reports and analysts say Sinofsky, who has been with the company 23 years, had been viewed as a possible successor to CEO Steve Ballmer, perhaps on the strength of his picking up the Windows division with the release of Windows 7 after the Vista debacle. He also was in charge of Windows 8, Microsoft’s radically different OS.

However, some are comparing his departure to the recent exit of Apple‘s Scott Forstall, who was in charge of Apple’s mobile OS. (See Quoted: on reaction to Apple shakeup.) Like Forstall, Sinofsky is said not to play well with others — inside the company and out, such as with Microsoft’s business partners.

Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal said Sinofsky was a “polarizing” figure. He was “an uncompromising leader,” according to Reuters. Right before Windows 8′s launch, CNet said in a profile of Sinofsky that he had been butting heads with Ballmer lately, that his Windows team was “harder to work with over the past year than it has been.” As Microsoft seeks to tie together its mobile products and other offerings with Windows 8, it is said to need more cooperation among its many divisions.

The company said Sinofsky’s departure was a mutual decision, and in his memo he said he had decided to leave.

What does Sinofsky’s leaving say about Windows 8? It’s early yet, and though the reviews about the new OS are mixed, some say his departure has nothing to do with Windows 8, according to Bloomberg. What Bloomberg points out is that Sinofsky failed to receive all of his bonus for fiscal year 2012 because of a decline in Windows revenue amid the slowing of PC sales and the rise of tablets.

The new head of Windows engineering is Julie Larson-Green, who ZDNet reports was executive VP of program management of Windows Client and has been with Microsoft since 1993. Her management style might be the opposite of Sinosfky’s, at least according to a video interview the Verge has dug up in which she talks about getting people to work together.

Microsoft shares were down more than 3 percent to $27.20  as of this post, amid a mostly positive day for tech stocks.

“This was better than the Giants winning the World Series. People are really excited.”

— an anonymous source of the New York Times, talking about the firing of Scott Forstall, Apple‘s mobile software chief, who according to a couple of reports had been close with the late Steve Jobs and had clashed with other company executives. Apple announced Monday that retail chief John Browett also is leaving after less than a year. Analysts say the management shakeup probably has to do with Apple’s embarrassing Maps problems, among other things. “At least with Forstall, it looks like it has to do with problems with usability, which is the iPhone’s trademark,” Gartner Research analyst Ken Dulaney told the Mercury News. Both the NYT and the Wall Street Journal report that Forstall had refused to sign the public apology over the Maps mess — missing or misplaced places were among the problems found in the program that made its debut with iOS 6 — that CEO Tim Cook eventually issued. (See Apple’s Tim Cook sorry over Maps mess.) As part of the shakeup, design chief Jony Ive will gain even more control over user experience, the company said.

Some management changes at Silicon Valley tech companies:

• Zynga chief creative officer Mike Verdu is reportedly leaving to start his own company — which CEO Mark Pincus said Zynga would back. Verdu, who worked at the San Francisco social-games company for three years, told AllThingsD’s Tricia Duryee his departure “not a function of anything else going on at the company.”

It wasn’t clear what the former Electronic Arts executive, who is starting a mobile-games company, was referring to, but take your pick. Zynga shares are down more than 65 percent since the company’s December IPO and are languishing near their all-time low; its executives have been hit with an  insider-trading lawsuit; COO John Schappert left earlier this month after a little more than a year on the job; and other executives are heading for the exits, Bloomberg reported last week.

Zynga shares were down more than 2.75 percent to $2.99 as of this post.

• Yahoo earlier this week announced it has lured the CEO of a startup to Sunnyvale, to be the company’s chief marketing officer. Kathy Savitt, a former Amazon.com employee, is leaving Seattle online commerce company Lockerz to work for new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. Savitt’s experience also includes a stint with retailer American Eagle Outfitters, where, according to GeekWire’s Todd Bishop, she “became intrigued with Generation Z” and may bring the same focus on youth to Yahoo.

Yahoo shares were up slightly as of this post amid a so-far negative day for tech stocks.

• VMware’s incoming CEO Pat Gelsinger had his head in the cloud Tuesday at VMworld in San Francisco. “If we look in the data center of today we see a museum of the past,” Gelsinger said, according to Bloomberg. The Bloomberg article said the Palo Alto virtualization company’s new plans, including its recently announced purchase of Nicira, will put increased competitive pressure on Cisco Systems. The Merc’s Jeremy Owens wrote last month about the VMware challenge to Cisco.

Former EMC (and Intel) executive Gelsinger is replacing Paul Maritz, who is returning to VMware parent company EMC as chief strategist, starting Sept. 1. The management shuffle was announced a couple of weeks ago.

VMware shares were off nearly 1.5 percent to about $89.55 as of this post.

This week’s departures came at three tech companies that have plenty in common. Yahoo, Hewlett-Packard and Research in Motion have been around a while. They have struggled to adjust as new competition has popped up in a world of social and mobile. Not coincidentally, all three companies have new chief executives.

• Blake Irving, head of products at Yahoo, has resigned, according to reports by AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher and Bloomberg. Irving’s team was among the hardest hit when the company announced Wednesday that it is cutting 2,000 jobs. Irving, formerly of Microsoft, came to Yahoo in 2010 when Carol Bartz was CEO.

Swisher’s sources say Irving disagreed with the mass layoffs — Yahoo’s sixth in four years — that appear to come with no plan on how the struggling Sunnyvale company is going to move ahead. Scott Thompson, the former PayPal president who became Yahoo CEO in January, is reportedly going to address employees Tuesday about that plan.

• There was a key departure reported this week at another Silicon Valley company in transition. HP Labs chief Prith Banerjee has left the Palo Alto company, Brandon Bailey of the Mercury News wrote Wednesday. Banerjee, who was hired five years ago by then-HP CEO Mark Hurd, will become chief technology officer at ABB, a Swiss tech company.

CEO Meg Whitman, the former eBay CEO who took the helm at HP in September, has indicated she wants HP’s research arm to work more closely with its business units. CTO Shane Robison, who had been at the company for 11 years and headed HP’s research and development, left HP in October.

• Finally, the revolving door keeps turning at BlackBerry maker Research in Motion, a Canadian company whose falling fortune has been tied to Silicon Valley’s dominance in smartphones. A couple of vice presidents, one for the BlackBerry platform and one for BlackBerry messaging, are reportedly either leaving or have left. The departures come on the heels of a turnover at the top, with former co-chairman and CEO Jim Balsillie leaving at the end of March. Mike Lazaridis, who along with Balsillie stepped down as co-chairman and CEO in January, remains on the board as vice chair, according to Canada.com

Last week, RIM reported that revenue dropped 25 percent in its most recent quarter, falling short of expectations. Among the options RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has said the company is considering are licensing its software, or an outright sale.

I wanted to post a short note to let folks know about a couple of changes here.

Elise Ackerman, one of the contributors to SiliconBeat, has left the Mercury News. Elise had been covering the Internet, among other thing.

Also, Jack Davis, our data manager, accepted a buyout. For those of you who have been following this blog for awhile know, Jack was the main force behind Docu-Drama. Jack and I started Docu-Drama as a stand-alone blog back in late summer 2007 to focus on securities filings of valley companies. Earlier this year, Docu-Drama was folded into the re-launch of Silicon Beat.

Jack’s departure will bring an end to official Docu-Drama posts.

I wanted to acknowledge Elise and Jack’s work here, and say thanks to those of you who have been reading their stuff.

Electroglas, the beleaguered supplier of wafer testing systems to chip manufacturers, said Friday that Warren Kocmond, the chief executive it named on Feb. 9, announced  on Monday that he would be resigning as of Aug. 3, although he will continue to serve on the company’s board of directors. The company’s chairman and former CEO, Thomas Rohrs, will replace him as interim CEO.

The company cut its workforce by 15 percent in March and cut the salary of its remaining employees by that same percentage. It said at the time that the steps were “not enough to compensate for the precipitous drop in revenue” during its fiscal 2009 third quarter, which ended Feb. 28. Later in March Electroglas had its stock de-listed from Nasdaq about the same time that four of the directors on its board quit.

The company reported holding about $5 million in cash as of Feb. 28. It burned through $11.8 million in its first nine months of fiscal 2009.

Glu Mobile, the San Mateo developer of games for mobile devices, said today Chief Executive Greg Ballard has “indicated his intention to transition his role” with the company, beginning immediately.

During the transition period Ballard (pictured) will continue to earn his annual salary until the company hires a new CEO or Jan. 1, 2010, whichever comes first. He will continue to earn his annual salary of $281,250 and will also be eligible to receive bonuses and his options will continue to vest. Ballard’s salary was reduced on Dec. 1 to $281,250 from $375,000, at his own request, according to SEC filing Dec. 2. That came two days after the company announced a restructuring that included a reduction in force of at least 37 employees in research and development. The company ended the year with 550 employees, up from 417 in 2008. Ballard had served as chief executive since September 2003. He was formerly chief executive of SonicBlue, a maker of the ReplayTV digital video recorders and Rio digital music players.

Glu Mobile held its initial public offering in March 2007 when it first sold shares to the public at $11.50. They lost 90 percent of their value last year, ending 2008 at 50 cents. They closed Wednesday at 94 cents.