The rumors have been swirling for a while, and today the news came out: Micron Technology has posted a net loss of $225 million for the third quarter of fiscal 2007, and Steve Appleton is stepping down as president, though he will remain as CEO and chairman of the board. There was no specific announcement of layoffs, but that’s what’s been rumored and feared.

Micron, in its announcement, said, “The company is pursuing a number of initiatives to drive greater cost efficiencies and revenue growth across its operations. These initiatives include developing production cost efficiencies closer in location to Micron’s global customers, evaluating functions more efficiently performed through partnerships or other outside relationships and reducing the company’s overhead costs to meet or exceed industry benchmarks. Micron is also exploring opportunities to leverage the company’s industry-leading technology and diversified product portfolio to accelerate revenue growth and increase shareholder value. While some elements of these initiatives will be effected immediately, others will take multiple quarters to implement.”

Chief Operating Officer Mark Durcan, 46, will become president as well as chief operating officer. He’s an engineer who’s been with the company since 1984.

Micron, Idaho’s biggest private employer, said the loss came because of “severe price declines across most memory products.” The firm’s sales of NAND Flash memory products in the third quarter were actually up 75 percent in gigabytes compared to the second quarter, but the prices for those products fell 30 percent at the same time. Prices for DRAM memory, a key Micron product, fell 35 percent.

The $225 million net loss for the quarter came on net sales of $1.3 billion, and equates to 29 cents per diluted share. You can read Micron’s full announcement here.

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