DealBook: R.B.S. Names New Head of British Retail Bank

DealBook: Royal Bank of Scotland Names Chief Executive

Bits Blog: Zynga Names Xbox Executive as New Chief

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Bits Blog: Microsoft Names First Female Finance Chief

Microsoft Amy Hood, Microsoft’s new chief financial officer.

Microsoft named Amy Hood, an executive at the company, as its chief financial officer, the first woman to hold the top finance job at Microsoft.

Ms. Hood, 41, joined Microsoft in late 2002 and was most recently the chief financial officer of Microsoft’s business division, the unit that oversees its lucrative Office suite of applications. She replaces Peter Klein, Microsoft’s chief financial officer who announced recently that he was resigning to spend more time with his family.

A number of women have risen to Microsoft’s top ranks, but like most technology companies, its senior leadership is still dominated by men. One exception is Lisa Brummel, who, as chief people officer, runs the company’s human resources department. Late last year, Microsoft appointed two women, Julie Larson-Green and Tami Reller, to run the engineering and finance operations of the company’s Windows division, one of its most important units.

As chief financial officer, Ms. Hood will play a bigger role in helping Microsoft adapt to major changes in its business, most notably the shift to mobile devices from PCs and the transformation of traditional software into cloud services. In a sign of these changes, for the last six months, Steve Ballmer, the chief executive officer, has begun talking about Microsoft as a devices and services company.

Ms. Hood will also serve as Microsoft’s ambassador to Wall Street, which has for years looked skeptically at the company’s efforts to enter new businesses like Internet search. After a recent solid earnings report from Microsoft, investors have become more bullish on the company’s prospects. Its shares now trade near their 52-week high.

In an e-mail to Microsoft employees on Wednesday, Mr. Ballmer said Ms. Hood had helped lead the change of Microsoft Office into a cloud service. He said that he worked closely with her on two big acquisitions, that of Skype and Yammer, and that her critical thinking would be an important skill in her new job.

“Amy is a great collaborator with a history of successful cross-group projects, and I am looking forward to having her as a member of my leadership team,” Mr. Ballmer wrote.

Intel Names Brian Krzanich as Chief Executive

The company that became a household name through its “Intel inside” stickers on personal computers is still the king of PC chips. But that is a shrinking business, and Intel is a laggard in making chips for hot products like smartphones and tablets.

That has put Intel in a bind, as semiconductor competitors long under the thumb of the Silicon Valley giant have gained traction through relationships with mobile device leaders like Apple and Samsung.

But Mr. Krzanich (pronounced KREZ-nick), a 52-year-old company veteran who started with Intel as an engineer when he was 22, says he is cleareyed about the challenges and has a plan to stop his company’s slide.

“I look at this world and see all kinds of devices connected to computers, and people connected to it all the time,” Mr. Krzanich said in an interview. “We can bring things to companies that others haven’t dreamed of.”

He even has a broader picture of Intel’s future, like imagining moving beyond today’s popular mobile devices and into other gadgets in people’s homes and even into so-called wearable computing devices. “If you’re just talking phones, you’re shooting behind the duck,” he added.

Last year, almost two-thirds of Intel’s $53 billion in revenue came from making chips for PCs, a market Mr. Krzanich acknowledges is “not growing, let’s be honest.”

Last month, researchers at the information technology firm IDC said PC demand declined more than 13 percent annually in the first quarter, as buyers turned to mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. In the same period, IDC said worldwide tablet shipments were up 142.4 percent, while smartphone shipments were up 41.6 percent. The bulk of Intel’s remaining revenue came from chips for computer servers, a business Intel still dominates.

Mr. Krzanich, who is the company’s chief operating officer and is an expert in running big chip factories, will become Intel’s sixth chief executive on May 16, succeeding Paul S. Otellini, who unexpectedly announced his retirement last November. Intel also promoted Renee James, the 48-year-old chief of the company’s software division, to president on Thursday.

Some analysts saw the appointment of Mr. Krzanich as a signal that the company would increase investment in its manufacturing while chasing new customers with chips meant for mobile products.

“The PC and server markets are so big, so important, that you can’t take your eye off the ball,” said Doug Freedman, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. Mr. Krzanich, he noted, “is very much about the results. He comes from a world of schedules and manufacturing.”

But Mr. Freedman also said, “There’s a part of the investment community that would have preferred an outsider” to shake up the company. This was never likely at Intel, he noted, where employment shorter than a decade marks one as a newcomer. Intel said it considered both inside and outside candidates.

Mr. Krzanich was one of several internal candidates who made their final pitches to Intel’s board last weekend. Ms. James was also vying for the job, and Mr. Krzanich said the two had privately discussed working together, no matter who became chief executive.

“She was a very viable candidate,” he said. “Our vision of a mobile, connected computing environment was so close, we saw together we could drive things faster.”

Though he would not detail his entire strategy in the interview, Mr. Krzanich said he saw no reason to reduce Intel’s spending on cutting-edge chip technology and manufacturing. “I fought for this job for a reason,” he said. “The assets that made us great in PCs and servers are even stronger in the mobile and cloud world.”

In part, Mr. Krzanich says he believes he is carrying through on a plan that’s already under way.

On Monday, for example, Intel will introduce a new version of its low-power Atom chip designed for communications products, where its market is negligible.

If successful, Mr. Krzanich will create an Intel markedly different from the past.

Under Andrew S. Grove, the executive who coined the unofficial company slogan, “Only the paranoid survive” and led Intel to dominance in providing chips for PCs and servers, the company honed a business known for a few close relationships with partners like Microsoft, and then PC manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard and Dell. Those relationships and the fortunes of those companies have declined in recent years.

Today, Intel faces competition from Qualcomm and Nvidia in the manufacturing of chips for mobile devices. H.P. is showing off servers that use parts from five or more competitors.

Even Microsoft, once the other half of a relationship so close that pundits called the two companies Wintel, is working with other chip makers for its video game consoles and tablets.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 4, 2013

An article on Friday about the challenges facing Intel’s new chief executive, Brian M. Krzanick, misspelled the surname of the company’s departing chief executive. He is Paul S. Otellini, not Ottellni.

Times Names European News Editor and a New Berlin Chief

Room for Debate asks whether it is sensible to have average customers help rescue Cyprus’s financial institutions.

The land out here is a series of characters to me, as mysterious and alluring as any people I might invent on the page.

Alcatel-Lucent Names Chief to Lead a Major Downsizing

BERLIN — Alcatel-Lucent, the struggling French telecommunications equipment maker, on Friday hired a former Vodafone and France Télécom executive, Michel Combes, to lead the company through what might be a major downsizing.

Mr. Combes, 51, will take over for Ben Verwaayen, who had failed in four years to bring the equipment maker, created by the 2006 merger of Alcatel of France and Lucent Technologies of New Jersey, to sustained profit.

Mr. Combes left Vodafone last summer after agreeing to take over as chief executive of SFR, a French mobile operator owned by Vivendi. But he withdrew from the job after the sudden departure of Jean-Bernard Lévy as Vivendi’s chief executive.

In brief remarks to senior executives this morning in Paris, Mr. Combes said he planned to conduct a “listening tour” of employees, shareholders and other stakeholders before formulating a strategy for Alcatel-Lucent, which lost 1.4 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in 2012.

The company is in the midst of cutting 7 percent of its global work force, 5,500 of 76,000 jobs, by the end of this year.

In a statement, Mr. Combes said he would work to return Alcatel-Lucent to lasting profitability, something that has eluded it since the trans-Atlantic merger.

“This is a company I know well,” he said in a statement, “and I look forward to succeeding Ben, working with the key international customers and driving the business into sustained profitability for its customers, employees and shareholders.”

Alcatel-Lucent’s shares fell 1.8 percent, to 1.12 euros, in Paris trading after the announcement. Alexander Peterc, an analyst at Exane BNP Paribas in London, said investors had hoped for an executive with more of a track record as a cost-cutter. He said that Mr. Combes should quickly identify which businesses were for sale.

The company has indicated that its optical submarine cable business and its enterprise business of selling equipment to large companies and organizations are on the block, Mr. Peterc said.

“Alcatel-Lucent is in a crisis situation, and even just identifying which businesses it intends to sell would be a step forward that could save thousands of jobs,” Mr. Peterc said. “They have tried for six years since the merger and have spent 4 billion euros on restructuring to turn this company around, and it hasn’t worked yet.”

Mr. Verwaayen, the former chief of the British telecom operator BT, integrated the Alcatel and Lucent product lines and organizations under a unified brand. When he announced on Feb. 7 that he would step down, he said in a call with analysts that the company was reviewing its entire business portfolio with an eye to possible asset sales.

In December, the company secured 1.62 billion euros in emergency financing from Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs to buy more time. As a condition of the loans, the company pledged a percentage of revenue derived from future asset sales.

Martin Nilsson, an analyst at Handelsbanken in Stockholm, said Mr. Combes would most likely be forced to take major steps to expedite the resizing of Alcatel-Lucent, including selling some businesses. Only 12 percent of the company’s work force, roughly 9,000 people, is in France. The rest are spread around the world, mostly in the United States, China, India, the Netherlands, Japan and South Korea.

“I think irrespective of the C.E.O. they had chosen, this is the main challenge for Alcatel-Lucent at this time,” Mr. Nilsson said. “It has been seemingly very difficult for this company to reach sustained profitability.”

In another potential signal that Alcatel-Lucent may be entering a phase of greater reorganization, the company announced that it had appointed Jean C. Monty, the former president and chief executive of Nortel Networks and Bell Canada, vice chairman of the board, a new position.

Philippe Camus, the Alcatel-Lucent chairman, said in a statement that Mr. Monty would be working closely with Mr. Combes to sort out the company’s future.

“We are fortunate to have such an experienced colleague to support Michel Combes in his new role,” Mr. Camus said. “I’m looking forward to working more closely with Jean, and I’m convinced Alcatel-Lucent will benefit from his incredible knowledge of our business.”

Mr. Nilsson said that Alcatel-Lucent’s turnaround would not be easy. Selling money-losing businesses and cutting research and development spending to increase profit will decrease Alcatel-Lucent’s base of sales and could limit its future growth potential by slowing the development of new products.

“It is very easy for tech companies to get into a downward spiral,” Mr. Nilsson said.

Alcatel-Lucent has declined to say which businesses it might sell. In 2012, sales fell more than 20 percent in its optical networking business and 17 percent in wireless networking. It blamed the lower sales on the rapid transition by United States operators to faster network gear based on Long Term Evolution technology, which reduced demand for Alcatel-Lucent’s second- and third-generation products.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 22, 2013

An earlier version of this article misspelled, in one reference, the last name of the departing Alcatel-Lucent chief executive. He is Ben Verwaayen, not Verwaaven. It also misspelled the given name of an Exane BNP Paribas analyst. He is Alexander Peterc, not Aleksander. Additionally, an earlier summary for the article misstated the size of Alcatel-Lucent’s loss in 2012. It was 1.4 billion euros, not 1.4 euros.

ALI Names Harvard Law School Prof as New Director

Daniel J. Meltzer, the Story Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, is set to take over as the director of the American Law Institute in June 2014.

Singapore Names Second Round of QFLP Firms

Singapore has awarded additional Qualifying Foreign Law Practice licenses to four international law firms out of 23 that applied.

Sidley Austin; Linklaters; Jones Day; and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher are the four firms that received QFLP status, Singapore's Ministry of Law announced Tuesday. Unlike other foreign firms, QFLP firms are allowed to practice local Singapore law in certain areas and directly hire Singapore-qualified lawyers.

The four new QFLPs join six firms that were awarded licenses when the program was first rolled out in 2008: Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith, Latham & Watkins, Norton Rose, and White & Case.

In deciding whom to name this time around, the ministry said it considered factors including the value of offshore work the firm's Singapore office would generate, the number of lawyers who would be based in Singapore, and the degree to which the Singapore office would serve as a regional headquarters.

The ministry did not name the unsuccessful applicants but firms that had previously said they were applying in this round include DLA Piper, Ashurst, and K&L Gates.

The QFLP scheme embodies the Singaporean government's desire to simultaneously make Singapore a regional hub for international law firms while avoiding complete domination of its local profession by foreign firms. Before the QFLPs were introduced, foreign firms were only permitted to practice local law through joint law ventures with local firms.

These JLVs were nonexclusive, and tensions invariably arose as each firm within the venture continued to freely work with other firms outside of it. Most JLVs involving major U.S. firms quickly collapsed, and most of the large U.K. firms pulled out the moment QFLPs became available. Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy, for instance, were both previously in JLVs with local firms WongPartnership and Shook, Lin & Bok, respectively.

Linklaters' successful QFLP application this time around followed the collapse last year of its JLV with local market leader Allen & Gledhill. The firms' decade-long arrangement fell apart when Allen & Gledhill decided to discuss a strategic alliance with Allen & Overy. Those talks ended without a deal, but the Singaporean government decided to make such tie-ups easier by permitting international law firms to own one-third stakes in local ones.

Though foreign firms are clearly interested in becoming QFLPs, those who have the status largely regard it as "nice to have" rather than a necessity. QFLP firms have hired relatively small numbers of Singaporean lawyers, most of whom are dual-qualified.

Michael Cronan, Who Gave TiVo and Kindle Their Names, Dies at 61

The cause was colon cancer, said his wife, Karin Hibma, with whom he founded the marketing firm Cronan in the early 1980s.

Mr. Cronan, who studied art in college, had many corporations and cultural institutions as clients, but he was most remembered for the pair of brand names he came up with a decade apart.

In the spring of 1997, he was asked to forge a name and an identity for a new device, a digital video recorder developed by a company called Teleworld that offered more sophisticated television recording choices than the videocassette recorder.

“We reviewed probably 1,600-plus name alternatives, seriously considered over 800 names and presented over 100 strong candidates to the team,” Mr. Cronan told Matt Haughey for his blog PVR (the letters stand for personal video recorder) in 2005.

“We spent the early meetings trying to place a cultural context on the product,” he said. Among the possibilities were Bongo and Lasso, which never got far.

Believing that “we were naming the next TV,” Mr. Cronan recalled, “I thought it should be as close as possible to what people would find familiar, so it must contain T and V.”

“I started looking at letter combinations,” he added, “and pretty quickly settled on TiVo.” (The “Vo” portion, he said, had a connection to the Latin and Italian words for vocal sound and voice.) Then came the search for a mascot that Mr. Cronan hoped “would become as recognizable as the mouse ears are to Disney.” He created a TV-shaped smiley character with the name TiVo inscribed on its face, rabbit ears suggesting an early TV set and large, splayed feet. Teleworld changed its name to TiVo Inc.

When Amazon prepared to introduce its first electronic reader in 2007, it turned to Mr. Cronan, who envisioned imagery reflecting the reading experience as an embryonic but rising technology.

Ms. Hibma said in an interview on Friday that in pondering a brand name, Mr. Cronan “wanted to create something small, humble, with no braggadocio,” while choosing an image that “was about starting something, giving birth to something.” He found the name, she said, by likening use of the new e-reader to “starting a fire.”

Michael Patrick Cronan was born on June 9, 1951, in San Francisco. He studied painting at the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts), where he later taught, and received a degree in art from California State University, Sacramento. He was a founder and past president of the San Francisco branch of AIGA, the professional association for design.

Mr. Cronan and his wife expanded their focus in 1992 to create the Walking Man clothing collection, featuring loose-knit tops and pants. Mr. Cronan also designed a pair of 1999 postage stamps, one commemorating the 50th anniversary of NATO and the other promoting prostate cancer awareness, and painted portraits and watercolors.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Cronan is survived by his sons, Shawn HibmaCronan and Nick Cronan; a brother, Christopher; a sister, Patricia Cronan; and a granddaughter.

For all his devotion to marketing and branding, Mr. Cronan felt that sometimes the demands of commerce went too far, as in the often-changing corporate names attached to sports stadiums and concert halls.

“There was a time in American life where going to a sporting event or a concert was sort of magical, because a lot of these places had these fun names,” he told The Denver Post in 2010. “But these days, with the amount of people craving advertising exposure, the sponsors have found a way to sell everything. They’re selling our nostalgia, and it’s sad.”

Subpoena of Google for Names of Bloggers Ruled Properly Quashed

A plaintiff in a defamation suit over anonymous postings on a Google-hosted blog may not obtain the writers' names, a New Jersey appeals court rules, upholding a trial judge who quashed a subpoena.