Novell Fills EMEA Slot
Novell, which has been moving its senior management around, has named Volker Smid, who's been serving as GM for Central Europe for the last 18 months, president of Novell EMEA. He succeeds Tom Francesese who was tapped to run worldwide sales in October.

Ho, Ho, Ho: Intel to AMD
Lehman Brothers, which thinks that AMD is capacity-constrained, also thinks that Intel may be aggressively pricing products and quotes China-based Commercial Times, which cites PC OEMs as its sources, as saying that Intel may again cut prices on its P4s by better than 60% on January 21. Lehman, acknowledging that Intel has not confirmed the story, believes the "pricing environment for MPUs is one of the most crucial variables impacting AMD" and attributes Intel's aggressiveness to "AMD's margin shortfall in 3Q06 - and remains a risk that we acknowledge the company has limited control over."

Ho, Ho, Ho: AMD to Intel
AMD expects the processor market to grow 10% next year and it expects its MPU revenues will grow twice that. It made the forecast at an analyst meeting Thursday morning in New York, sending a nice upward shimmy through its stock. Its ATI acquisition is supposed to add $80 million-$160 million in incremental revenue. The acquisition is supposed to be accretive by 4Q07 and "significantly" accretive in 2008. AMD now thinks it'll get better '07 cost reductions and pre-tax synergies out of the deal than originally assumed - respectively something like $150 million (not $75 million) and $200 million (not $125 million). Under pressure in servers, it wants to extend its share position in the mobile and commercial sectors.

HP CFO To Finally Retire
It's hard to remember now how many times HP's CFO Bob Wayman, 61, was gonna retire but this time it's actually supposed to happen. He's to step down at the end of the year and will be replaced by the company's treasurer Cathie Lesjak, 47. Wayman will leave the HP board in March at the annual stockholders meeting. Wayman has been CFO of HP since 1984 except for the interregnum between Carly Fiorina and Mark Hurd when he ran the company as acting CEO, a moment in time that earned him a ridiculous amount of money. Meanwhile, Dick Lampman, the head of HP Labs, is also supposed to retire next year after a replacement is found. Lampman has to live down the Itanium.

Rackable Sales Chief Gone
Rackable VP of worldwide sales Thomas Gallivan has resigned for no given reason, effective January 5. The company is looking for a replacement. Meantime CEO Tom Barton will oversee international sales while president Todd Ford tends domestic sales. The SEC filing Monday said Gallivan will get severance of up to $171k.

EPA To Take on Server Warming
Before it went home for Christmas, the US Congress passed legislation directing the Environmental Protection Agency to study and promote the use of energy-efficient servers. The White House has to sign it. The legislation assumes a 50% increase in server deployment between 2005 and 2009.