Now, I am rarely (ever?) writing about personnel changes but this one probably deserves a note: Greg Ballard, Glu Mobile‘s CEO, is stepping down.

Here’s a man (and a company) on whom many in the sector have an opinion: Ballard leaves a lot of burned cash, big losses, huge inflation of license fees offered to rights owners, etc, etc. The comments on some blogs are not all complementary However, this is also the man (and the company) that went from what many perceived as an ailing publisher (back then when they were Sorrent) that bought other ailing publishers (first Macrospace, then iFone), were in the ropes a couple of times (ahead of their IPO, late last year) and yet so far always managed to pull through. And not only that: coming from a contested group of publishers that fought for the #3 behind EA Mobile and Gameloft, Glu now is firmly occupying that spot.

Is it healthy? Not (yet?). Is it all good? Is it to stay? That’s a tough question and I would need to gaze into a crystal ball I do not possess. Glu had started to pull back on cost (anecdotally, they “re-sized” fairly significantly; Hong Kong sea-front office closed, posh London location shrunk, …). As per their CFO, “the company remains committed to being cash flow positive from operations during FY09”. There you have it.

Anyway, I wish Greg well!