Rayfield oversaw the development of Nvidia’s Tegra processors and analysts are rather concerned about the high-profile defection, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Moor Insights and Strategy market researcher Patrick Moorhead said Rayfield and his team were successful in battling larger development teams at rival companies. “Mike’s leaving on an uptick,” he said.
Longbow Research analyst JoAnne Feeney described Rayfield’s departure as a “big loss” for Nvidia. “He’s really been driving the strategy,” she said.
Earlier this year Nvidia landed the biggest Tegra design win to date, the Nexus 7, and Tegra chips will also power Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet. However, while Nvidia has had quite a bit of success in the tablet market, the list of interesting platforms it missed out on is just as long. You won’t find Tegras in Amazon tablets, new Samsung phones and tablets or Windows Phone 8 devices.
More here.