Apple's new iPod/iPhone czar Papermaster must stop work, says judge

Stephen Withers
Monday, 10 November 2008 05:40

IT People - People

A court order means Mark Papermaster, Apple's newly appointed senior vice president of devices hardware engineering, must stop work until further notice.

Apple announced Papermaster's appointment last week, but the cat was already out of the bag as IBM had already filed suit against Papermaster in an attempt to enforce a non-compete agreement he signed as a senior employee of IBM.

While IBM's filing asserts that it and Apple are competitors, a written declaration to the court by Papermaster paints a different story.

He characterises IBM as "a global technology company that provides specialized products and services to its business customers" while Apple "is in the business of designing, manufacturing and marketing consumer-oriented hardware and related products."

And most specifically: "Until this litigation effort by IBM, aside from the divested IBM personal computer business and a single sale several years ago of Apple's Xserve product to a university, I do not recall a single instance of Apple being described as a competitor if IBM during my entire tenure at IBM."

There was also a suggestion by IBM that Papermaster would in fact be working with Apple subsidiary PA Semi "to improve the Intel-based architecture used in its personal computer, and develop new servers and systems that would compete with IBM's product offerings."

Papermaster discounts this, saying "That is certainly not the job I was hired for, which is limited to the iPod and the iPhone, Indeed, I have been advised by Apple that I will not be managing PA Semi assets in my role at Apple."

What else did Papermaster have to say? See page 2.