The Seattle Times: Brier Dudley's Blog

The full FBI report on Steve Jobs

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:31:04 PST

Here's the newly released FBI report on Steve Jobs, which notes many of the character flaws that were revealed in his authorized biography published in October.

(If this is loading slowly, you can see the document at the FBI's archive site here.)

Ghastly plunge for video games, Xbox holds lead

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:32:32 PST

The video game industry played submarine last month.

Sales dove deep in January, falling 34 percent to $750.6 million, according to the monthly NPD report on U.S. physical game sales.

That includes a 38 percent decline in sales of game hardware, 38 percent decline in software sales and 18 percent decline in accessories.

There were few releases to buoy sales and most likely buyers spent their game budget during the holidays. Sales also looked weak compared to the surge driven by Microsoft's Kinect in January 2011, NPD analyst Anita Baker said in the release.

"While the lack of new launches was a major reason for software declines, games which launched in Q4 11 also performed poorly in Jan '12, down 31% in units compared to Q4 '10 launches in Jan '11," she said in the release. "As shoppers were not drawn to stores due to new launch activity, this potentially impacted additional software purchases made on impulse."

Microsoft held onto its bragging rights. The Xbox 360 was the top-selling console for the thirteenth straight month.

More than 270,000 Xbox 360 consoles were sold last month, giving Microsoft a 49 percent share of current-generation console sales.

"We'll probably see an up month in February but you can never crystal-ball," said Xbox spokesman David Dennis.

Here are the top-selling games in January, according to NPD:

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (360, PS3, Wii, PC)
Just Dance 3 (Wii, 360, PS3)
Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (360, PS3, PC)
NBA 2K12 (360, PS3, PSP, Wii, PS2, PC)
Battlefield 3 (360, PS3, PC)
Madden NFL 12 (360, PS3, Wii, PSP, PS2)
Mario Kart 7 (3DS)
Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure (Wii, 3DS, 360, PS3, PC)
Zumba Fitness 2: Party Yourself (Wii)
Saints Row: TheThird (360, PS3, PC)

Apple iPad 3 surfacing in March, report says

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:43:20 PST

Apple will reveal the iPad 3 at an event in March, "sources" told the All Things D site affiliated with the Wall Street Journal.

The site's co-founder, Walt Mossberg, is particularly close to Apple so the report carries more weight than most of the constant rumors about the company's upcoming hardware.

Don't expect a huge change in the iPad, though. The new model will be a lot like the current one, except it will have a faster processor, graphics system and 2048 x 1536 Retina Display "or something close to it," the report said.

Apple dominates the web tablet marketplace but it will face renewed competition this year.

New Android tablets are coming, perhaps including a 10-inch Kindle Fire, and PC makers are gearing up to introduce full computers with instant startup and the same proportions as the iPad.

Those slim, tablet PCs will run Windows 8. News of the iPad 3 debut in the first week of March comes the day after Microsoft disclosed that a preview version of Windows 8 is coming Feb. 29.

WTIA award finalists revealed

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:33:05 PST

So what are the top tech companies in Washington this year?

The Washington Technology Industry Association will make its selections on March 15 at its 17th annual industry awards event. Here's the list of finalists being released today:

- Best Early Stage Company: Appature, BigDoor, GreenCupboards
- Best Seed Stage Company: Simply Measured, Spiral Genetics, Zipline Games
- Consumer Product or Service of the Year: DocuSign, Parallels, Zillow
- Commercial Product or Service of the Year: EagleView Technologies, SEOMoz, Skytap
- Technology Accelerator Award: Founder's Co-Op, Lighter Capital, Opscode
- CEO of the Year: Ben Huh (Cheezburger), Steve Singh (Concur), Bryan Mistele (INRIX)

Student finalists for the WTIA Technology Leader of Tomorrow award and their projects are:

- "Pablo's Underwater Adventure," Amanze Oleru (7th grade) and Joanna Wong (6th grade)
- "The Skateboard King," Biruk Araya (8th grade) and Tyler Lam (6th grade)
- "Get Rich," Gizan Gando (7th grade)

People can vote on their choice of the student award here.

"We're fortunate to live and work in a state with such a diverse and vibrant technology community," WTIA Chief Executive Susan Sigl said in the release. "These finalists represent the most creative and innovative companies and individuals in our industry and deserve the highest congratulations."

Q&A: Microsoft Flight boss on "rebooting franchise"

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:31:06 PST

Microsoft is resurrecting one of its oldest franchises, "Flight Simulator," with an entirely new game called "Microsoft Flight" that's debuting on Feb. 29.

But instead of a new installment of the hyper-realistic, encyclopedic simulator that mostly appealed to flight enthusiasts, Microsoft built a smaller, more accessible game that's going to be offered online for free.

Planes can be flown simply by moving a mouse around, though enthusiasts can also use more realistic and complex controls.

It's also a new business direction for Microsoft's PC game business, which is using "Flight" to experiment with free online games monetized through microtransactions. About 80 percent of U.S. gamers now play such titles, mostly through Facebook, where players spend an average of $29 per month, according to Parks Associates research.

To start, the game will let people fly around Hawaii - the Big Island - in planes including a Boeing Stearman similar to one displayed at the Museum of Flight. For $20 players can get seven additional islands, new missions and an additional plane.

Microsoft will periodically offer new territories, planes and activities. The company may also extend the franchise to other devices beyond the PC. Executive Producer Joshua Howard hopes the game will draw more than 20 million players eventually.

Howard (left) leads a studio with about 50 employees, a third of whom are veterans of the ACES Studio behind "Flight Simulator" that Microsoft wound down in 2009.

Here are edited excerpts of an interview this week with Howard:

Q: Gaming on Windows has seemed to languish, maybe because so much energy was around Xbox. How much is this release a sign that the Windows game group is back, especially with Windows 8 coming up soon?

A: Some folks on my team will say Games on Windows isn't what it used to be. You're forgetting it is certainly the biggest platform for gaming anywhere, ever. I feel like the PC has been the most successful platform when it comes to gaming because gaming as a whole has become mainstream - 75 million people playing Facebook games of one form or another, that's all on a PC. It didn't happen on a console, it didn't happen on a closed mobile platform.

As Microsoft - to have built that system and allowed that to happen - we don't get to take credit for everything people do on a PC but that didn't happen because we ignored PC gaming. So I think PC gaming is alive and well in fantastic ways in fantastic ways. It's still where the heart of innovation is happening.

Q: I didn't mean PC gaming as much as PC game development within Microsoft. Perhaps the company felt it no longer needed to seed the market so much?

A: It's doing very well so that's right, maybe that's part of what it came down to.

Q: Is Flight intended to seed online services and bring people into Microsoft's online realm?

A: I like to think this is both about reimagining a franchise that we know has always been successful. I also think it's part of Microsoft the studio saying 'I want to develop this new muscle.' Maybe because we have so much of the organization focused on the console-side of the business which is more rigid when it comes to business models, you get to ask the PC side to be a little more experimental, a little more exploratory. I relish that opportunity and the team has really jumped on that. We couldn't be doing half the things we do here on a console - this is not a console game that just happens to sit on a PC. This is really a PC game and we're proud of that.

Q: Is your studio just building this title?

A: I imagine this is a group of people who will continue to bring flying experiences out over time. This is where we are right now.

Q: One you've developed new muscles, you want to keep using them ...?

A: There are a lot of really cool, exciting platforms on the horizon. I'd love to think that someday you'll be hearing from me about how we're going to bring Flight to those exciting opportunities.

Q: On tablets and other devices with Windows?

A: It could be broader than that even. As a division we no longer organize around your PC games and your console games. We're a team that's about the thrill and experience of flight.

Q: But it makes sense that your games could be on the new PC form factors running Windows ... like tablets, maybe TVs - the "three screens and a cloud"?

A: Yeah. I believe in crawl, walk, run. We're rebooting a franchise, and that was really hard. We wanted to this well. We took the time and energy to do that. Now this becomes a platform to keep going.

Q: Is it running on Azure and will it be used to showcase the platform's ability to run a massively multiplayer online game?

A: The services could be on Azure but they're not today. It turns out they didn't need what Azure provides as far as scale goes. It's less MMO in that sense. While do have what we think of as interesting and enjoyable multiplayer, it's still not that massive. (Up to 16 players can play together in an online session.)

Q: So the focus is on the PC experience mostly?

A: Yes. The way we talk about it is between the client, and the web site and the community that combines them, that's what Flight means. It's this combination of those three elements working together.

Q: It sounds like a hybrid PC game.

A: Exactly. In many respects we are like an MMO business would be run, we just don't happen to be an MMO. We're taking what is traditionally a game studio and transitioning it into an online business.

Q: Why did Microsoft take so long to resume development of MMO PC games?

A: I think the reality internally is we've continued to incubate and play and continue to try things. You just don't always bring those to market or out until you believe you've got something you can be successful with. I was excited to see that instead of trying innovate in these genres that are already well-understood, Microsoft went off and tried Kinect. I think Microsoft just put their energies elsewhere and it paid off.

Q: Will you sell the game on discs at retail?

A: Sometime maybe in the future but right now we're all in online. Retail is not something we're talking about right now.

Q: Will you get it preloaded with PC hardware?

A: Possibly.

Q: Will it be part of the game suite included with Windows 8?

A: Probably not. We deal with those separately - that's an operating-system business, we're a game publisher.

Q: Will you be able to control the game with gestures, if you attach a Kinect sensor?

A: We're not talking about Kinect support at this time but who knows.

Q: It seems like the tradeoff you made - building richer, smaller locales to explore in the game - is the loss of the full, open world that could be explored in "Flight Simulator"?

A: The bet we've made is that to the non-hardcore simmer, flying the whole world isn't as interesting when there's nothing really interesting to see or do. I do get that for some segment of the audience that was one of the values - I can fly anywhere, into any airport, 25,000-odd airports was crazy.

But I think as you try to broaden and you want to bring in not the next million or two but the next 20 million or 30 million people, you say I will err on the side of more interesting area that's dense than the same amount of content spread all over the globe. There's a lot to do in Hawaii, and Hawaii is gorgeous.

Q: It seems inevitable that you'll have a mobile version someday?

A: We may do other stuff in the future but today we're just talking about the PC version of flight. I think Flight has legs. This is a franchise that's going to keep living for a lot of years. We're going to do that by exploiting all the opportunities that are coming at us, whether that's mobile, new operating systems, new hardware. There's a lot of stuff out there and I think Flight is going to be part of that at some point.

Q: I thought the ACES studio was fully shuttered back in 2009?

A: The reality was inside the company there were already efforts underway to bring that core expertise back together with a new mandate of how they could move forward.

Q: Will Flight make more money than Microsoft's "Gears of War"?

A: I think in the long-run, this franchise will definitely make more money than "Gears." I think Gears is a great. Flight is one of those evergreen franchises in entertainment - this will live another 30 years.

Former Windows boss giving away guitar, lessons

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:29:05 PST

Jim Allchin used to give the world free service packs and browsers.

Now he's giving away a Fender American Stratocaster -- worth $850 -- to build up his list of online friends.

Since he left Microsoft as president of the company's platforms group in 2007, Allchin has built a new career as a blues musician, drawing on his Southern roots to compose and release two albums.

To boost his following, he's holding a contest offering the Stratocaster and a guitar lesson via Skype to people who fill out a form on his website and follow him on Twitter, subscribe to his email list or like him on Facebook -- where he has about 3,500 fans.

The contest runs until Feb. 24, after which Allchin may turn his attention to the new preview version of Windows 8 which is appearing on Feb. 29.

Unfortunately he's not offering up his custom Windows XP axe:

Kinect Star Wars returns, launches April 3

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:41:26 PST

Microsoft and LucasArts have apparently worked out the kinks in "Kinect Star Wars," a flagship game for the Xbox 360 that was supposed to launch in time for the holidays.

The companies delayed the release in August, saying they had to work on the game's quality.

Today they announced that it will finally be released on April 3, for $49.99. They'll also start promoting it with demos this Saturday at some AMC Theatres that are showing the new 3D "Star Wars: Episode 1 The Phantom Menace."

Five modes are in the game, including podracing, "Rancor Rampage," "Galactic Dance Off" and "Duels of Fate."

There's also "Jedi Destiny: Dark Side Rising," which includes space battles, speeder bikes and duels with Darth Vader and others.

Microsoft's also offering a limited edition "Star Wars" console in a bundle with the game for $449.99. The hardware looks especially cool, but "Kinect Star Wars" and Xbox are going to have a tough time pulling "Star Wars" fans away from EA's online PC title, "Star Wars: The Old Republic."

A few screenshots - can you guess which one is "Duels of Fate" and "Galactic Dance Off"?

Canadians testing Apple TV, hints at the revolution?

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:31:05 PST

Apple's new TV is being tested in the labs of two Canadian phone companies, according to a report in the Globe and Mail.

The story offers new clues about Apple's strategy for its first TV, a gadget that hasn't been confirmed or seen publicly but has been speculated about for months. Some enthusiasts and pundits are already predicting that it will revolutionize the category.

The Globe and Mail reported that the TV will be launched with a select group of telecommunications companies that already have customers paying for wireless and broadband service.

"They're looking for a partner. They're looking for someone with wireless and broadband capabilities," a source told the paper.

Canada's Rogers Communications and BCE are in talks to be "iTV" launch partners and are testing the sets in their labs, the story said. It cited a Monday report by Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek suggesting that Apple will partner with Verizon Communications and AT&T in the U.S.

Hmmm.

Perhaps the revolution that Apple's bringing to the TV is less about its interface and more about changing the business arrangements required to buy and use the hardware.

Apple could be repositioning the TV as a hardware device that's purchased in tandem with a contract for broadband service, similar to the way its smartphone was initially only available with a data plan.

It's not clear whether Apple's marketing force will overcome consumers' resistance to having the TV become another gadget bound to a monthly carrier bill.

TVs have always been a product that you buy and operate free and clear, without monthly obligations if you're satisfied with broadcast content. Most people now rely on cable service but the notion of TVs being an autonomous device continues, as evidenced by perpetual frustration with cable services, enduring interest in "cable cutting" and policies mandating free digital broadcasts.

Giving up this sort of liberty would be a high price to pay for the promise of an improved design and user experience.

But selling TVs like cellphones would help Apple overcome what's likely to be its biggest challenge in the TV business -- pricing.

Apple's TVs are expected to be dramatically more expensive than similar-sized TVs from other manufacturers.

Yet if they're sold through carriers and bundled with multi-year service plans, the hardware cost can be spread over the life of the contract. That's what made the iPhone affordable to consumers who are willing to pay the $200 price subsidized by contracts.

Carriers could also entice consumers by bundling the iTVs with packages of video content, such as AT&T's U-verse streaming service or the video streaming service that Verizon's developing with Coinstar.

It would get really interesting if the carriers also streamed live cable video content to the sets via the Internet, extending their cable businesses nationally. But licensing arrangements with ESPN and others would likely prevent them from leapfrogging cable franchise areas this way.

Apple TV sets will have other improvements that will seem especially dramatic if you haven't bought a new TV recently or followed the industry's hardware advances.

TVs are basically morphing into large computer displays. Processors that run games, applications and video services -- plus wireless radios to connect to home networks and nearby devices -- are either being built into the set or connected via peripheral devices such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

It's not a stretch to imagine a chipset similar to the iPad's appearing in a large-screen display. Apple has a knack for releasing new products just as a wave of new computer hardware is cresting, and TV makers are beginning to put multi-core smartphone-type processors into their sets.

Apple TVs will be controllable via iPhones and iPads, a capability that's now available with connected TV sets and applications from Comcast and other companies.

Apple sets are also likely to use voice and perhaps gestures for input, similar to what Microsoft, Panasonic, LG and others have been doing with the Kinect and other new interface systems.

All new connected TVs connect to app marketplaces similar to iTunes and offer roughly the same core set of video rental and service applications.

Bundling this all together in a sleek package with the latest tiny processors inside is what every TV maker is trying to do nowadays. The trick is keeping the price down.

So what's left to be revolutionized? The business arrangement.

I'll bet that was the TV puzzle that was finally "cracked" by the ailing Steve Jobs, according to his biography. The solution: Start selling and servicing TVs like iPhones.

Apple, Samsung drive 61 percent smartphone surge

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:01:04 PST

Smartphone sales grew 61 percent to 491.4 million units in 2011, according to a new report from IDC.

It was a huge year for phones but sales were slower than in 2010, which saw a 76 percent gain in smartphone sales.

Samsung and Apple are neck and neck for the leading market share, after a phenomenal year for Samsung.

Samsung's unit sales grew 310 percent to 94 million phones, while Apple's sales grew 96 percent to 93.2 million phones. That left Samsung with a 19.1 percent market share and Apple with 19 percent, according to IDC's report.

Nokia posted a 23 percent decline, to 77.3 million units. The report talks about the potential of the new Windows phones, though their arrival in the fourth quarter wasn't soon enough to help Nokia, which saw a 30.6 percent decline during the quarter.

HTC was up 17 percent during the fourth quarter and 100 percent through 2011.

One out of three phones shipped was a smartphone at the end of the year, according to IDC, which said the broader variety of phones available -- particularly with Google's Android software -- is helping to expand the market.

"So-called 'hero' devices, such as Samsung's Galaxy Nexus and Apple's iPhone 4S, garner the bulk of the attention heaped on the device type," IDC analyst Kevin Restivo said in the release. "But a growing number of sub-$250 device offerings, based on the Android operating system, have allowed Google's hardware partners to grow smartphone volumes and expand the market concurrently."

An interactive graphic from IDC:

Chart: Top Five Worldwide Smartphone Vendors, 4Q 2011, Five Quarter Market Share Changes (Units)Description: Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, February 6 2012Note: Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors.IDC's Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker provides smart phone and feature phone market data in 54 countries by vendor, device type, air interface, operating systems and platforms, and generation. Over 20 additional technical segmentations are provided. The data is provided four times a year and includes historical and forecast trend analysis. For more information, or to subscribe to the research, please contact Kathy Nagamine at 1-650-350-6423 or knagamine@idc.com. For more information about this tracker go to: http://www.idc.com/tracker/showproductinfo.jsp?prod_id=37Tags: IDC, Mobile Phone Tracker, Smartphone, Smartphone Vendors, Samsung, Ap ...Author: IDCcharts powered by iCharts

Report: Amazon opening store in Seattle

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:16:05 PST

In its ongoing push to be all things to all people, Amazon.com may open its first real store in Seattle, according to an online report.

Amazon will open the store in the next few months as a test, according to the report by Goodereader.com, which cites "Amazon sources close to the situation."

An excerpt:

This project is a test to gauge the market and see if a chain of stores would be profitable. They intend on going with the small boutique route with the main emphasis on books from their growing line of Amazon Exclusives and selling their e-readers and tablets.

Amazon has used Seattle to test various concepts, including its Fresh food delivery service and lockers at which customers can have packages delivered.

The company already collects sales tax in Washington so Amazon won't have challenges there.

We'll have to see what strategies other retailers use to draw shoppers from Amazon's stores.

An Amazon spokeswoman declined to comment on "rumors or speculation."

Lessons from TeachStreet, folding into Amazon

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 12:46:04 PST

For every Mark Zuckerberg, there are thousands of entrepreneurs still waiting for their big prize.

Sometimes it's just the promise of a steady paycheck.

Consider the fate of Seattle's TeachStreet, an online education directory that's shutting down Feb. 15 after five years. Its breakout moment never came, but the company still had an outsized effect on the region's startup community and ended up teaching a few lessons itself.

Chief Executive Dave Schappell, 43, left Amazon.com in 2004 to work for philanthropies and startups. The idea for TeachStreet crystallized over coffee with another Amazon vet, Jason Kilar, who now runs Hulu in Los Angeles.

With less than a dozen employees, TeachStreet built an online version of the community bulletin board for listing instructional services such as piano lessons and language teachers. Its listings grew to more than 400,000 local and online classes, and investors eventually put more than $3 million into the business.

While TeachStreet built up an audience and began expanding beyond Seattle, Schappell became a prominent member of the region's enthusiastic circle of Web entrepreneurs.

Schappell -- who earlier helped lead the humor website JibJab -- is a garrulous rainmaker who stood out in field of polished networkers.

Among his lasting contributions is the monthly "Hops and Chops" startup gathering at a Capitol Hill bar, where Schappell promised to pick up the tab last Thursday, the day TeachStreet announced its fate.

"He's one of those guys who has 40 hours a day somehow ... and he found lots of time to help out," said Scott Jacobson, a partner at Madrona Venture Group, which invested in TeachStreet, along with Kilar, Jeff Bezos and a handful of others from Seattle. "That's the hallmark of a guy who's not just a good entrepreneur, but cares a lot about the startup ecosystem."

Schappell said the turning point came a year ago.

After four years -- and a painful restructuring in 2009 -- TeachStreet became "essentially profitable" in January and February of 2011.

Then it was walloped -- by Google's notorious "Panda" revision to its search ranking system.

Google's goal was to improve the quality of its results and demote sites that used sketchy techniques to boost their search presence, but the casualties included scores of sites like TeachStreet's that were built largely around the flow of customers from Google.

"That was the point where we lost two-thirds of our traffic overnight," Schappell said. "We tried a lot of things to try to recover that traffic."

At that point TeachStreet had to decide whether to raise more money for a renewed push or "find a good transition," he said.

"That's when the expense shortfall or the net losses started piling up," he explained. "We looked at things and felt the better thing was to find a partner who already had a lot of traffic and matched our content."

It turned out the partner was right outside TeachStreet's office in South Lake Union, which is now dominated by Amazon's headquarters.

A month ago Schappell subleased TeachStreet's space to social-gaming startup Massively Fun. Then last Tuesday the TeachStreet team began working in its new offices at Amazon, where it's now part of the AmazonLocal team offering daily deals from local merchants.

At first, I wondered if AmazonLocal was going to draw on TeachStreet's directory to sell discounted lessons, but that apparently wasn't part of the deal. TeachStreet will delete all student and teacher customer data when it shuts down.

Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said via email that "the TeachStreet.com team will join us to work as part of the growing AmazonLocal team," but didn't provide more details.

So how did the investment turn out for Madrona?

The firm's "happy with the outcome," according to Jacobson, also an Amazon veteran.

"Dave's a really talented entrepreneur and we certainly enjoyed working with him, and Amazon's getting a great team," he said. "In all those senses, it's a great outcome."

Jacobson wouldn't discuss the terms or what intellectual property Amazon acquired.

But speaking generally, he said that companies wanting to quickly build a team may invest in "experiential IP" -- or an experienced group of developers.

"Sometimes you can accelerate that by having a coherent team that already works well together, has already seen all the challenges, knows what mistakes not to make," he said. "A well-oiled machine that can just hit the ground running and has the background and experience to not make the same mistakes is actually quite valuable."

It didn't get the blockbuster exit, but at least the TeachStreet crew ended up with good jobs at a leading tech company.

The real lesson may be that companies have to be careful about building too much of their business on a single, shifting platform. That's hard for Web startups, given the dominance of Google and Facebook. But Jacobson said new devices and services are giving companies more channels to reach customers now, compared to the early days when startups battled for play on AOL, Yahoo or the "carrier deck" of software that phone companies loaded on earlier cellphones.

"There's a lot of examples -- not just in Web -- where if you're not well-diversified, you run risk as a business," he said. "I don't think anybody says, 'We're going to hitch our wagon to one thing or another,' but in some cases they're more exposed to one source of traffic than others."

He pointed to other companies that did break through, such as Yelp and the Cheezburger network, which built brands strong enough that people navigate directly to their sites.

That may be what TeachStreet clients have to do after the site shuts down next week. One of the first users, Wedgwood art teacher Janet Lia, said TeachStreet was "vital to the growth of my art studio" and brought 90 percent of her students now taking private lessons.

"I'm feeling nervous and tenuous about not having that exposure on the Internet," she said.

Lia started her AWE Studio the same year as TeachStreet and used its free listing service. Later she paid monthly fees for premium services such as marketing templates.

"In this economy, to start a business five years ago and be successful has been pretty miraculous," she said. Now, "I'm going to have to do the work to complete this."

Here's Schappell demonstrating the TeachStreet just before its launch:

Micron CEO killed in plane crash

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:00:11 PST

Steve Appleton, chairman and chief executive of Boise-based tech giant Micron Technology, died this morning in a plane crash in Boise.

The tragedy will resonate across Idaho, where Micron remains a flagship company and one of the largest employers despite its recent challenges making money in the cyclical, hypercompetitive memory chip business.

Micron disclosed the incident in a statement on its website, saying it's "deeply saddened" to announce the accident. Appleton was 51.

"Our hearts go out to his wife, Dalynn, his children and his family during this tragic time," the company said. "Steve's passion and energy left an indelible mark on Micron, the Idaho community and the technology industry at large."

More information will be provided later today, the company said.

The Idaho Statesman reported that the plane crashed at the Boise Airport at around 9 a.m. It was a Lancair experimental plane -- a single-engine prop plane -- that "went down between two runways" after dispatchers received reports of a small plane on fire, the paper reported.

Appleton survived a 2004 crash of an aerobatic plane near Boise, the paper noted.

Trading in Micron stock was halted.

Appleton graduated from Boise State University in 1982 and joined Micron in 1983. He advanced through production management, becoming president of manufacturing in 1991, president of the company in 1994 and chief executive in 2007.

Micron started in 1978 and is now one of the world's largest semiconductor companies, producing a range of memory products and semiconductor systems used in computers and mobile devices. Its consumer brands include Lexar and Crucial.

The company had sales of $8.7 billion last year and has more than 20,000 employees in Boise and at facilities across North America and in Asia, Europe and Israel.

Just last week, on Jan. 26, Micron announced that its president and chief operating officer, Mark Durcan, would retire at the end of August and be replaced by Mark Adams, currently president of worldwide sales at the company.