Now, we all acknowledge the direct competition between the two hardware producers AMD and Intel but what happens if one of the two companies sets its eyes on the competition’s people? Let the head hunting begin.

Latest news report that AMD has hired rival’s top designer as well as other 8 colleagues of his. A whole team, right ? Samuel Naffziger, who has been with Intel for less than a year after working for Hewlett Packard, has now changed sides working for AMD.

Though Intel is not really showing any concerns, Naffziger has actually played an important role in the design and launch of McKinley and Montecito processors. Within the new company, Naffziger is set out to work as a senior fellow on the design of a new chip. Still AMD does not plan to give away any details regarding his work or the work of his colleagues.

Rumors say that AMD is to move closer to Intel as Naffziger is supposed to assist the opening of a design center in Fort Collins, the same small city where Intel does most of its Itanium design. What will this center’s main design focus be? Knowing that most engineers in the area have worked on Itanium or PA-RISC and with AMD planning to hire 30 people, it is most likely that the new design center will focus on multi-core processors instead of desktops or mobile MPUs.

According to Real World Technologies, AMD is supposed to extend the number of employees from 30 to 200 if there are enough interested engineers.