14 DAY TRIAL // There's a good reason why headhunters make bank, and there's another reason why Microsoft pays them heaftily. Dr Burton J. Smith, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Cray, is going to work for Microsoft. Yes, they've claimed yet another soul in their continuous strive to take over the world (or was that Google?).
His new role hasn't been yet announced, but many speculate that his role there will be tied in with working on cluster computer systems. This is something Microsoft has recently been pushing toward their audience since they believe that's where the future of computing is headed.
Smith added: "I have truly enjoyed my long association with Cray and the opportunity to spend many years at the forefront of high performance computing. Although I am excited to pursue a new and very different opportunity at Microsoft, I will miss being part of this team and wish Cray continued success."
Smith is mostly known for winning the Seymour Cray Computing Engineering Award from the IEEE Computer Society in 2003.
Cray's President and Chief Executive Peter Ungaro wished him luck and underlined: "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."
Cray has been trying to roll with the punches, but it's been tough lately with the recent retirement of the other co-founder James Rottsolk earlier in the year.