"Steven R. Appleton" was the CEO of Micron Technology, based in Boise, Idaho.

Born and raised in California, Appleton attended Boise State University, where he was on the tennis team. A lifelong aviation enthusiast, he died when his single-engine plane crashed shortly after takeoff in Boise, Idaho, on February 3, 2012.

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The global economy is facing stiff challenges from which our industry is certainly not exempt, ... However, Micron is poised with one of the strongest balance sheets in the industry, an excellent complement of people resources, an industry leading process technology and a resolve to emerge from these troubled times as the strongest semiconductor memory manufacturer in the world.

Although we cannot determine if recent memory price increases will be sustained, current market conditions are encouraging.

Micron's products, customers and the solutions we enable have evolved to a point where changing parts of our organization will continue to increase our presence and competitiveness in the global marketplace.

DRAM (dynamic random access memory) prices have come back a little bit. Although they are not that strong, we expect them to be stable or improve for the rest of the year.

We have the technology, ... We wake up and we're in a great spot.

How would you like 15 hours of battery life on a notebook rather than three or four? What if you didn't have to go through that stupid boot-up sequence? Anytime a solution for storage can be US$50 or US$60 or less, the mechanical guys are out and the solid-state guys are in.

This acquisition allows us to move the final stages of image sensor silicon processing and other critical manufacturing steps from our Boise manufacturing operations to this new facility, which at the same time will free up space in our existing facilities and allow us to continue to meet expanding demand for our products.

Both companies are evaluating a broad array of strategic options.