OIL & GAS

Shares of Cray fell as much as 7 percent today on news that its chief scientist and co-founder, Burton Smith, resigned from the company after accepting a new position at software giant Microsoft. Smith will leave the company on December 7, Cray said. He also resigned from his post on Cray's board of directors. "As our Chief Scientist and an important leader of our research and development team, Burton has provided innovation and technical leadership to Cray for many years," said Cray president and CEO Peter Ungaro. "We are very proud of the enormous contributions Burton has made to the high performance computing marketplace, and look forward to seeing his ideas leveraged in the broader computing industry." "I have truly enjoyed my long association with Cray and the opportunity to spend many years at the forefront of high performance computing," said Smith. "Although I am excited to pursue a new and very different opportunity at Microsoft, I will miss being part of this talented team and I wish Cray continued success." The company did not say what Smith's position will be at Microsoft.