INDUSTRY

Advanced Micro Devices has hired Samuel Naffziger, the former Director of Intel's Itanium processors, and eight of his Fort Collins, Colo.-based colleagues working there. He joined Intel in 2005 when Intel hired Itanium designers from Hewlett-Packard, where Naffziger led the Itanium design team for eight years. He is a senior fellow and will work on design development at AMD. Naffziger's departure was reported by Real World Technologies. Naffziger joined AMD in late February or early March, and will help start a Fort Collins design center. AMD initially aims to hire 30 designers in Fort Collins, but will increase the head count to 200 if there are enough interested engineers. Managers from AMD moved to the area in early January to set up an office; they have posted ads in the local paper also held a job fair. Intel has had troubles selling Itanium. Do Intel, HP, SGI and other Itanium allies still envision a bright future?