SiliconBeat

PLX Technology announced the hiring Ralph Schmitt as its new chief executive Monday. He’s replacing Michael Salameh, who has been CEO since co-founding the company in 1986, according to an SEC filing today.

Schmitt, a Cypress Semiconductor marketing executive from 1999 to 2005 when he left to become CEO of Sipex, an analog semiconductor company which merged with Exar, a fabless semiconductor company, in August 2007. In 2008 he left to work Read the rest of this entry »

SumTotal Systems, the Mountain View developer of personnel training and management software, said Monday that its chief executive, Don Fowler, 70, was retiring, effective Nov. 1, although he would continue as a “business advisor” to the company through his official termination date on Dec. 31.

Fowler’s transition agreement includes changes to his option terms so that Read the rest of this entry »

Richard Crowley was named chief financial officer of Integrated Device Technology, according to a filing the San Jose chip maker made with the SEC Tuesday. He will begin work Oct. 20, 10 days after he leaves his current employer, Micrel. Crowley gave his notice last week at Micrel, which revealed the decision in its own filing today.

Crowley, 51, has worked at Micrel since 1999 and spent 18 years with Read the rest of this entry »

Well, that didn’t take very long.

Within a month of departing VeriFone after completing that company’s restatement of results from fiscal 2007 that lopped off $70 million worth of profits because of “material weaknesses” in the company’s financial reporting process, ex-CFO Barry Zwarenstein re-surfaced Wednesday as the new chief financial officer at Smart Modular Technologies.

We previously wrote about Zwarenstein’s separation agreement which, among other things, guaranteed that the only information VeriFone would give to any prospective employers doing background checks in the future would be Read the rest of this entry »

Adept Technology, the Livermore maker of manufacturing robotics, is set to go to court Sept. 16 to try and stop its eviction from its headquarter facilities in the Tri-Valley Technology Center on Triad Drive, according to one of its SEC filings Wednesda. It’s landlord, who gave the company notice back in April that it wished to terminate its lease, and saying that the company owed it a $1 million “termination fee.” The July deadline came and went with Adept still occupying the space. A second termination notice was served giving the company until Aug. 26 to vacacte the premises, which Adept still has not done. Read the rest of this entry »

VeriFone Holdings, the San Jose supplier of electronic payment systems that last month completed a restatement of several quarters of financials since 2007 that lopped off $70 million worth of previous profits, named Silicon Valley veteran Bob Dykes (pictured) to help leads its “continued growth and stability,” according to a press release Tuesday afternoon.

Dykes, a 30-year financial veteran who has served as CFO at major valley companies such as Read the rest of this entry »

VeriSign filed details of the compensation package being given to founder James Bidzos, who returned to the company as its interim chief executive at the end of June. His annual salary was set at $900,000, half of which is guaranteed for six months, regardless of whether a permanent CEO is hired.

Bidzos also received a grant of restricted stock worth $4 million when they were approved Aug. 4. The stock vests quarterly over a one-year period, no matter what.

VeriSign shares plunged 12.7 percent yesterday after the Internet infrastructure company reported a wider second-quarter loss as it absorbed the costs of a major reorganization. The drop may have helped hasten a move by the company’s board authorizing a stock buyback of $680 million worth of VeriSign shares.

Tessera Technologies, the San Jose developer of electronics miniaturization technologies, said it has a new chief executive, “effective immediately”, according to a regulatory filing Wednesday. Taking over is Hank Nothhaft, currently vice chairman of Tessera’s board.

Outgoing CEO Bruce McWilliams, who is “transitioning to a new role as Read the rest of this entry »

Motorola, the troubled communications hardware maker that plans to split its operations into two different publicly held companies, named Qualcomm Chief Operating Officer Sanjay Jha (pictured) to be one of its co-chief executives. Jha will head up the company’s mobile devices division, once the producer of must-have cell phones that failed to keep pace.

Getting an executive to defect from a successful business like Qualcomm, a maker of wireless chips whose stock has risen by more than a third so far this year,to join Motorola, whose shares have dropped nearly 40 percent so far this year after losing 22 percent in 2007. Does not come cheap. Read the rest of this entry »

In order to get Kevin Johnson (pictured below) to leave Microsoft, where he was instrumental in that company’s aborted attempt to buy Yahoo, Juniper agreed to give him $5 million just for signing on the dotted line. He gets $1.5 million for his first year, another $1.5 million for his second, and a final $2 million for his third, according to an SEC filing Monday. Read the rest of this entry »