Resignation Caught Magazine by Surprise

Ian Diery’s sudden resignation as chief executive of AST Research Inc. in Irvine two weeks ago caught many by surprise, including Computer Reseller News.

The Diery news broke so late that the weekly trade magazine didn’t have time to revise an interview with the former CEO published last week. As a result, the magazine printed a story in which Diery talked at length about the future of AST, even though he was no longer part of that future.

Computer Reseller ended its Q&A; by asking Diery, who spent less than 10 months at AST, if there was “anything else we should look out for from AST in the third quarter?” Diery responded by saying, in part: “You’ll see us redrive the Pentium Pro [computer processor] issue very hard. We want to gain market share of that transition.”

A more prescient Diery might have added: “You’ll also see me out the door.”

Greg Miller covers high technology for The Times. He can be reached at (714) 966-7830 and at greg.miller@latimes.com